A must-read for anyone who loves gardening, and likes books that capture childhood in all its heartache and thwarted desires.

"She could not explain it more clearly than that but she knew it was the trying that was important; even if it fails, it goes to swell the sum total of trying, as a martyr's faith, even if he is killed for it, swells the faith of everyone." (p. 226)

An Episode of Sparrows is written just like a grown-up novel, but it's a story about children and for children, told just as seriously as any adult story and all the more charmingly for it. Lovejoy Mason is one of the children on Catford Street in London. It's a poor area, for the most part, just after the end of the Second World War, with bombed out lots and ruined buildings. All 11-year-old Lovejoy wants is a small flower garden of her own (she has practically nothing else), but finding a spot and getting things to plant in it requires ingenuity and stealth. And some assistance from Tip Malone, one of the neighborhood toughs (who must be all of 13), and the annoying attentions of 5-year-old Sparky, who idolizes Tip and begs to be in his gang. The garden is not Lovejoy's only problem; children and adults alike have their struggles in this memorable tale. Wish I'd run across it when I was a kid.

As a writer, I would like to be Rumer Godden. She writes deceptively simple books that can be read and appreciated by children but have subtle riches enough to satisfy readers of all ages. Thematically as well as stylistically they are inclusive and steeped in humanity.

This was my first reading of An Episode of Sparrows, and I wish I had been exposed to it when I was young because it would certainly have spoken to the child I was. Set in London in the aftermath of World War II, it depicts a world of physical and emotional privation; many parents today would not want their children reading about the harshness of such a world, and that’s a loss. Children’s emotional landscape is very intense, and to my mind they respond well to books that don’t whitewash or dumb down the world they are struggling to understand.

The story begins with a pair of aging spinsters still living in a mostly vanished world of gentility. Angela is all about good works and committees; Olivia has never really connected with life and drifts through it like a ghost. Angela is self-confident and judgmental, a bit of a tyrant; Olivia wistfully watches the outside world through the window of her old schoolroom.

The world she watches is that of Catford Street, a melting pot of immigrants and families clinging desperately to the edges of getting by, their perilous condition echoed by the bombed-out landscape around them. From Olivia’s observation point the story zeroes in on one of the Catford Street children, Lovejoy Mason. Lovejoy is the daughter of a vaudeville performer who used to include her little daughter in her act, but as both age, there is no place for Lovejoy on the road with her mother anymore. Mrs. Mason rents a room from a nice couple and goes out on the road; her visits to her daughter, like her payments for the room, are getting scarcer and scarcer.

Because of the itinerant life Lovejoy has led, she has little education and a narrow understanding of life; she knows a bit about clothes but little else. She still idolizes her mother but the reader can see clearly the deficiencies of her upbringing and the risks she faces. She is a classic unwanted child, hard-shelled but desperate underneath for someone or something to attach to. The Combies, the couple in whose house she lives, are kind but not really keen to take on the parental role thrust on them, and they have problems of their own. The husband, Vincent, is a dreamer who feels crushed if he doesn’t have a connection to the finer things in life, and he has no discipline when it comes to inviting in beauty that he can’t afford. All their lives are fragile and the threat of dissolution hovers over them like a shroud.

Lovejoy finds a packet of seeds dropped on the sidewalk and sets about doing the impossible—making a garden in the blighted landscape she inhabits. She has no idea how to go about it and stumbles her way into learning, with many setbacks. But the idea of the garden is an obsession; something in her needs to create, to own, to be in the presence of regenerating life. She gains an ally in a boy from the neighborhood, and together they set about trying to realize her vision. Even though the boy can’t really see or understand her vision, he sees her need for it and becomes protective.

Their efforts lead them into trouble, trouble from which a few enlightened and observant adults seek to rescue them when it threatens to sweep them away like so much trash. This is an unsentimental story about finding hope amid despair, and the kind of courage it takes to pursue dreams in a dehumanized world. As such it is a classic postwar novel, but its themes and the way they are played out make it rise above its moment to achieve universality. It is a classic.

A mix of "Secret Garden" and "Mandy" along with elements of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Oliver Twist." A great story of a young girl's desire to have something beautiful of her own and an innocent young love. The framing of the story - starting and ending with some narration by a couple of spinster sisters who overlook the street - is a little weird but doesn't interfere too much with the essence of the story and is the vehicle for the resolution so they kind of have to be around.

Loved the way Godden is able to portray a sense of joy or a sense of despondency so well that the reader can actually feel it themselves. Her ability to pull at heart-strings without being sappy or maudlin is really fantastic.

Definitely a fun story with, of course, a happy-ish ending.

"That was true, and dirt, earth, has power, an astonishing power of life, of creating and sweetening; it can take anything, a body, an old tin, decay, rust, corruption, filth, and turn it into itself, and slowly make it life, green blades of grass and weeds."

Rumer Godden has yet to disappoint me, and An Episode of Sparrows was no exception. On the surface, it's a very simple tale: two children--the street "sparrows" of the title--decide to create an "Italian" garden in the rubble of a bombed-out church (the story takes place in London, post-blitz.) Eleven-year-old Lovejoy, who has been more or less abandoned by her mother and lives as a boarder with a local couple who own a restaurant, convinces slightly-older Tip, leader of a "gang" of mischief-makers, to help her with her efforts. Alas, these young people run afoul of the local "garden society" matron, for the "crime" of digging up dirt to use for their own plants.

Really, it doesn't sound like much of a premise--at least I was a bit skeptical--but Rumer Godden excels, as always, at breathing all her characters, adult and children alike, to life. Without ever lecturing the reader or becoming didactic, she also manages to state a lot about the necessity and pitfalls of aspirations, faith, and of people reaching out to help each other. I especially liked the naive relationship that young Lovejoy formed with her idea of the Virgin Mary, from the statue in the church. My verdict: a book that is, so far, surviving the test of time. Definitely worth a read.

At first, I had a little trouble falling into the story. By the end, I had lot of trouble not crying on the bus. What a lovely novel. It's a children's book, but with plenty of adult themes. People are good, bad, cruel, kind, thoughtless, attentive, cowardly and brave. Sometimes all at once.

What a lovely book.
Lovejoy finds some seeds which she sows in the bombed ruins of post war London.
The gang destroy it but Lovejoy finds the ruins of a church where she then grows her garden with the help of Tip and Sparkey.
Beautifully written and reminds me of The Secret Garden.

What a sweet joy this book was to read! Lovejoy’s strength and determination and yet her vulnerability with Tip. Olivia finding her voice. Peeking in on the growth of each character, young and old was a joy.

This book took me awhile to get into, but once I did, it was excellent. I found it hard at first with all the characters introduced in a non standard fashion (you would hear their names dropped like you should know who they were, but you hadn’t actually met them yet), and all the changes of tense (in the middle of a paragraph, you often got a full page about what another person would say after the fact about what was happening right now). I found it took a lot of concentration to stay focused on what was going on, as it kept doing this. But once I started to learn the characters, it was actually a really fun style to read, and very unique writing style compared to most other narratives. I think this book would fall into the category of books that are marketed as being for children (young teens perhaps), but are really much more enjoyed by adult readers. As such, I’m glad I read it alone as an adult, as I’m pretty sure my kids would not have appreciated it as much as they enjoy The Secret Garden, which has many similar themes, but is more appealing to kids in the writing style.

rating 3.5

This is not a typical children's book. (Who was Godden's audience? Perhaps this targets adults.) The first 50 pages are mainly description with lots of names; we're introduced to characters who may or may not be essential to the story. Fifty pages ... that's a lot to read without much in the way of action. This example of the setting is from p 48:
Even in Catford Street there were signs of spring; spring sun shone on the pavements, windows were opened, and front doors were sometimes left wide; there was a strong smell of spring greens cooking, of soap and dampness from spring cleanings, of new paint.
That paints a vivid picture - and has one semi-colon. Godden likes the semi-colon.

Here's a sentence that addresses children; it's also on p 48:
Children, playing, left their coats open and they seemed to have a new energy; they played hopping games in squares and oblongs chalked on the pavement; they skipped—skipping ropes were suddenly fashionable this year—and some of the boys had scooters, painted scarlet.

Not only is the writing fairly sophisticated, some of the topics are, too. I had to re-read the paragraph about Lovejoy's mother entertaining male friends in their one room rental. While this encounter was going on, young Lovejoy sat forlornly outside the door on one of the steps.

Only someone raised under the mantle of Catholicism can fully appreciate Lovejoy's interpretation of how she viewed the church and its parishoners.

I kept wondering how I would have responded to the text when I was a child -- would I have given up, or been intrigued? Would I have appreciated Lovejoy's spunk? Could I have understood her passion for growing flowers in a 'real' garden? (Now, gardening is one of my favorite fair-weather activities, but when I was younger, I dreaded the task of pulling weeds.)

Finally, I gave up second-guessing what kids would think and let myself be carried away. The book never "called" to me. It didn't keep me reading late into the night. But it will stay with me. The plot is complex; the characters are motivated by their life circumstances, and the setting is distinctive. The whole story takes place within an area of only a few blocks.

An Episode of Sparrows (1955) is a story of friendship and love, of family and belonging, of dreams and dreamers, understanding and misunderstanding, and one that is essentially uplifting and warm, and brought a smile to my face (even if there were some heart-wrenching moments).

Set in post-war London, where the impacts of the war are still on the surface, the book opens not with the main characters but in the imposing Mortimer Square, inhabited by a fairly well-off segment of society, and overlooking the main focus of our novel, the working-class Catford Street. In Mortimer Square, we meet two of the characters whose lives end up intertwining within those of our main characters, and who end up influencing the course of these as well. The Misses Chesney—Angela the younger sister has been an accountant but now works for various charities, is energetic and also well looking while Miss Olivia, the elder is quite her opposite, but blessed with a sympathetic outlook that enables her to truly see and sympathise rather than jump to conclusions and judge.

Just behind Mortimer Square is Catford Street, bustling, noisy, full of life, though also of smoke and dirt. Here were meet Lovejoy Mason, eleven years old, who lives with Mrs Combie and her husband, George/Vincent while her mother Bertha is away on the stage. Lovejoy in many ways must take care of herself, from dressing herself immaculately with what little she has (taught to do so by her mother), going and coming from school and also looking after the room they lease from Mrs Combie. She has a friend in Vincent, who runs a small restaurant, in which he aims to entertain the best clientele but so far this is a dream that remains unrealised.

With a mother who is almost always away, no friends, and none who really wants or cares for her, one day Lovejoy finds a packet of cornflower seeds that someone has dropped and this creates in her the desire to have her own garden. Soon, this idea of a garden takes root and begins to become her solace and the focus of her life. While initially she embarks on the project on her own, soon Tip Malone who leads a ‘gang’ of local boys begins to sympathise with her and take an interest in the project. Before he knows it, Tip is part of it and at Lovejoy’s beck and call. But while he points her to a site for the garden in an old bombed out church, when they need good earth for the garden, it is to Mortimer Square that they turn, and thus begins a bit of trouble for the children and their dream.

While heart-wrenching in parts, this story is largely a heartening one, with warmth, hope and little miracles playing a role all through.

The book has been compared to the Secret Garden, and I can see where that comes from for here too, we have children who find solace, joy and friendship through their own secret garden—the little blades of green that sprout from the earth, the colour from the flowers, and the war time rubble they use to decorate it. The garden for Lovejoy is the one thing she has to hold on to in a world where she finds little love, sympathy and understanding.

Lovejoy isn’t the most likeable of characters; in fact, even after the garden begins to come together, and she finds a friend in Tip Malone, she does things that make one rather annoyed at her. However, all through the book, one really feels for her. At just 11, she is only a child after all, and one who has literally nothing. Her mother doesn’t seem to care about her, has pretty much left her to look after herself; not only that, when she does make her short visits, Lovejoy is usually constantly waiting on her or put out of the house while she entertains her boyfriends; she sees little kindness from others (although Mrs Combie is by and large a nice person, she too disappoints Lovejoy at a crucial time), and even the children around her are not particularly sympathetic.

While on the one side we have Lovejoy, Angela Chesney who is may be too rigid and ready to jump to conclusions for us to like, or the sharp-tongued Cassie, Mrs Combie’s sister who hurts often with her words, in Tip, Olivia and Father Lambert, we find sympathy and kinder hearts. All of Godden’s characters are very real, their actions and motivations understandable and preventing us from judging them too harshly, even where we wish they had acted differently

Dreams play a part in this story, as do small (and perhaps not so small) ‘miracles’. We have Lovejoy’s dreams, initially of having her mother with her, and later of the garden. Vincent wants to run an elegant and classy restaurant in a working-class neighbourhood; both these dreams seem to put upon others—Tip and Mrs Combie, but Lovejoy and Vincent are lucky in having people who do in essence sympathise with these dreams. What shape they take and whether they come true, you will have to read the book to see.

The book brings alive not just the various characters that we soon become interested in, but Catford Street itself—life as it unfolds there everyday; St Botolph’s Home for Compassion, an orphanage from which 26 little girls go out for walks in twos (very like Madeline); the newspaper stand and the owner’s little son Sparkey who longs to be in Tip’s gang; Mrs Cleary and Miss Arnot with their many cats; people walking dogs, as also others busily bustling about. This background too was lovely to see, and makes us feel like we are very much there, on Catford Street, watching the story unfold.

This was a lovely lovely read, and I am really glad to have picked this as my first Rumer Godden.