I would have said that I'm not sure that this is really a children's book. I did read it as a child, though, and really loved it. The main plot is about a young girl growing up in post-Blitz London, who almost by chance, decides to make a garden in one of the bombed-out sections in her neighborhood. There are a few other subplots, but the the book's theme is that of making something beautiful out of imperfect beginnings. One of my favorite books ever.

An unhurried but very absorbing and detailed picture of Londoners searching for purpose and connection shortly after the devastation of World War 2. Rumer Godden always wrote glowingly but not sentimentally about children in some pain and our scrappy heroine Lovejoy, who we see being abandoned by her mother but finding a cause to live in creating her tiny scratched together garden in the ruins of a bombed church, is particularly memorable.

I absolutely loved this book.

Lovejoy Mason and her friends are caught stealing earth from the square gardens but the irritated chairman of the gardening society Angela Cartwright doesn't understand why.

I just love the characters in this book. Lovejoy and Tip seem to be tough and gritty kids but they have their soft sides. This book reminds us why it is important to connect to each other and how to never give up on a dream. I loved the way that Lovejoy discovers a passion by accident and how she grows from it.

An absolutely brilliant book and I can totally see why it is one of Jacqueline Wilson's favourite books.

PHOTO: Lovejoy Mason despairs of her little garden

I first read An Episode of Sparrows when I was about 6 or 7, no later. What I took from it was the protagonist's prayer to become "cocksure," although she didn't quite recall the actual word and substituted "cocky," instead. I, too, yearned to be cocksure. I had also almost memorized one particular scene:

“…[S]he had a ridge of very fine short hairs on the back of her neck, soft as down, mouse-coloured but tipped with gold; they looked as if they were protecting the tender knobs of her spine; gently Tip put out his finger and felt those little bones. It was no good; even when Lovejoy was difficult and ungrateful he found it impossible to be angry...”

But let's begin, as they say, at the beginning. The very first sentence is a hook:

"The Garden Committee had met to discuss the earth; not the whole earth, the terrestrial globe, but the bit of it that had been stolen from the Gardens in the Square." So much klishmaclaver, over dirt! Which is exactly the point. The most well-to-do persons living in Mortimer Square are Angela and her quietly reserved sister, Olivia. Angela is the power behind the Gardening Committee, and pretty much the power behind everything else pertaining to their community, as well. She is on every board, and she is vehemently vociferous in her opinions. She wears an avenging angel hat with an upright blue feather making her taller than everybody else. And she wears her superiority as Olivia might wear a shawl.

Angela is up in arms about 12 smallish buckets of dirt that have disappeared, and she is absolutely certain HER garden soil has been purloined by one of the criminal boy gangs of Catford Street, which borders on their own prestigious Square. You can buy soil at the Army/Navy store, she fairly spits, but I'll bet anything they're selling it! (Mind, my paraphrasing isn't nearly a match for Godden's prose.)

“I think,” said Olivia, “it’s a little boy or girl.” “Nonsense,” said Angela. “No little boy or girl could carry all that earth.” But Olivia knew they had; while the others were talking she had seen, under a bush, a footprint that no one had smoothed away. It was a very small footprint. Olivia had scuffed it out with her shoe." Olivia sees far more than Angela does; she is not blinded by any sense of superiority; she is weak and knows it, but it is precisely that weakness that allows her to see what her sister is blind to or refuses to see. So what's going on?

A little girl, aged 11, named Lovejoy Mason is one of the so-called sparrows of Catford Street. They're called that because at certain times during the day, when school let's out for recess or end of day, there voices rise to the Square like the cheeping of birds:

"To Angela they were sparrows because they were cheeky, cocky, common as sparrows; to Olivia nothing was common; sparrows were sold for three farthings but not one should fall to the ground, though how that was possible she did not know, and apparently they fell all the time."

Lovejoy's mother has left her with Mrs. Combie and her husband, Vincent--and too often "forgets" to pay for Lovejoy's support. Thus Lovejoy is a sparrow in very real danger of falling. "When I was sweet," Lovejoy reminisces wistfully--before she lost all her baby teeth--her mother, a coloratura singer, taught her the importance of clothing and appearance. Streetwise by happenstance now, Lovejoy has become, as Godden describes her, "a little marauder."

When Lovejoy sees 5-year old, asthmatic little Sparkey, the newspaper boy no one expcetts to live to adulthood, holding a small envelope, she wrestles him for it--not even knowing what it is--and gets it with a sucker punch to his gut. She is described as having stone-grey eyes, a flat nose, and mousey brown hair, but she curates her too small wardrobe by carefully letting out the hems and seams, brushes her hair till it shines, and walks with blisters from shoes that were too tight a long time ago. She can barely read, as her schooling has been hit or miss, and mostly miss, at that, but she sees cornflowers on the front and decides she must plant them. She consults a local gardener, who reluctantly begins to advise her about planting a garden. First she must find a hideout so no one can see her garden, because it can be taken from her as she took the seed packet from Sparkey. She thinks she's found the perfect spot, but Sparkey sees where she is--and it turns out, she's chosen the very camp of the strongest gang, 13-year old Tip Malone's gang. Sparkey worships Tip and snitches.

Tip is one of nine Malone children. His father and 4 children work, and his mom does, too, two nights a week. Still, feeding 9 children takes pretty much all they have. Tip is already as solidly built as any man, and his gang look up to him for both his straightforward attitude and his fairness. His experience of girls is limited to his 5 sisters, who are all brawlers; they scream and struggle when anybody tries to brush their hair. The Malone family is Catholic and proud, though poor; Lovejoy knows nothing of faith and has none, except her sad faith in her mother, who will abandon her without a word.

As soon as Tip's gang sees Lovejoy's spare little attempt at a garden, they demolish it with steel-tipped boots. Tip's first words to her are, "Now get out." She kneels there, head down, grieving in silence--totally unlike Tip's sisters. Then she bites his hand.

Feeling a bit unmoored, he begins to talk with her, getting to know her:

“But why doesn’t your mother take you?” Tip was to ask Lovejoy. “She used to take you, didn’t she?” “That was when I was sweet,” said Lovejoy."

Tip takes her behind the ruins of his church where, he says, Father Lambert will never see, nor will anybody else. Her garden will be safe there. Lovejoy leans on him for more, and still more. She needs dirt. She needs money for better plants, seedlings instead of seeds, as the season is rapidly progressing. She'll need help watering her garden when the rains stop. She needs and needs and needs. And she's a tyrant, quick with criticism that stings, but something else--something more--

"It was a strange thing that Lovejoy, who before had scarcely ever cried, and certainly would have let no one see her, cried continually with Tip; as on the first day, he seemed to encourage her to cry and, when she did it, an equally strange thing happened to Tip; he became both weak and strong. The weakness seemed to come from somewhere above his stomach, where his counterpart, Adam, had lost a rib, perhaps, and it was sweet and powerful, a tug, as if the rib were attached and pulling; it made him do—“Anything,” said Tip helplessly."

There are so many different characters in this novel, and all are beautifully drawn. Mrs. Combie cares for Lovejoy but squirms about her because "she has ideas." And she and husband Vincent can't afford Lovejoy's care without her mother's occasional stipend. Vincent yearns to make their restaurant a classic Italian one with the finest menus, but he can't afford much. Still, he buys only from the best, while Mrs. Combie despairs of all he spends, as, for example, when they finally get a last 15 pounds from Lovejoy's mom and Vincent makes a half-down payment on a set of fancy dessert dishes instead of paying against their debts. But before that, when Lovejoy's mother entertains her "men friends" at the Combie's, leaving poor Lovejoy half-frozen on the stairs all night, it's Vincent who wraps her in a blanket and carries her downstairs to the couch. He next knocks on her mother's door, but we're left to wonder what happened there. Lovejoy's mother leaves, never to return.

A wealthy couple in a fancy car are looking to invest his dedicated trust to rebuilding a church and happen upon Father's Lambert's ruin at St. Sion's. They have dinner at Vincent's, and it's a big success. But it's a one time thing, and soon Vincent is forced to shut down. Debtors come to label and sell off all the Combie's goods.

Tip continues to help Lovejoy; even Sparkey joins in, overeager to do anything for Tip. The three steal the Garden Committee's dirt. Tip is as honest as the day is long but thinks one cannot steal dirt, it's common. The committee's shady gardener catches poor Sparkey when Lovejoy refuses to help him over the fence. Then Tip is caught. Determined, Lovejoy continues lugging the last bucket of wet dirt to her garden and gets away, although Olivia has seen her. Overwhelmed with guilt, Lovejoy then shows up at the police department where Tip and Sparkey are being held. Angela commands her gardener to charge Tip, while even the Inspector seems chary; Tip has never been in trouble before. Meanwhile, Angela in her own way also has had Lovejoy incarcerated --at at orphanage on whose board she sits, because, of course. She scolds poor Lovejoy when she despairs: “'You must learn to do as you’re told...You’re far too cocksure and independent.'" Ever after, Lovejoy yearns to be that: cocky and independent.

You'll have to read to learn what happens next. In the end, however, one of the committee heads, the admiral, remarks, in closure:

"...[T]hey came to the shrub beds. “This is where the trouble was,” he said. “What trouble, Admiral?” “Street children,” said the admiral with a quelling look at Lucas [the criminal committee gardener]. “You’d never think they stole loads of earth from there? The funny thing is that the holes are closing up; we didn’t do anything, they’re closing themselves, making new earth. Don’t ask me how,” said the admiral, “because I don’t know.”

English native Rumer Godden, with her two children, was abandoned by her husband in Calcutta; she made do by writing. Her life was a whirlwind worth being written about or filmed, and she wrote 60 novels in all, dying at age 91. Many other authors from her day are still popular, and she SHOULD be.

If you won't read it, gift it to a child of 10 or so--it's an important work.

I hoped I would like this book, but differently than I did. A wonderful story about a garden beside a church in the middle of a London broken by the Blitz. About how God renews lives despite loss, in loss, like a garden renews itself after dying, year after year. It's definitely God, it's definitely real loss; you don't get the old crop back, but there will be a new one. The book is an education in how to hope.

What a wonderful book!

Godden has such a sure touch when writing young characters. These are real children, in all their unsentimental glory. I loved our waif: Lovejoy Mason is so focused, so determined to have a real garden. She managed to co-opt poor Tip Malone into assisting her. He may have been the leader of a boys' gang, but he was no match for Lovejoy's driven, forceful personality.
The adults were treated with good deal of acceptance and compassion. The crankiest (Cassie, Angela) were not vilified; Vincent (with his dreams of restaurant glory) was not scorned. The author made sure that we saw Olivia and appreciated her, even as her sister Angela dismissed her.

The whole neighborhood came to life for me--the clamor of Catford Street, the quiet gentility of The Square, the bombed-out Catholic church--a richly detailed picture of one small slice of post-WWII London and the people who lived there.

Lovely story, lovely writing. I first read it as a young adult. I was not born when the storyline takes place, and I am American, not British as the characters are. Yet, I feel that while the writing is evocative of its setting, the story transcends it.

I'm surprised to find that many on this board were introduced to an episode of sparrows as children's literature. I see that many others reviewers are confused by this labeling, as well. Wikipedia lists it as among Godden's works for adults, and I agree with that.

Yes, two of the main characters are children, as are many supporting characters. But, much of the book's subtly comes from the children's interactions with adults and from the way the children are viewed, but eh adult characters. Much of the book's richness turns on the inner growth of an adult character, who has been treated as a child by her sister. There are many subtle, poignant layers to An Episode of Sparrows, and I think it would take some maturity to grasp them.

Of course, many stories are layered in such a way that you can read and re-read them throughout life. A child might enjoy them on one level and an adult on another and an even older adult on yet another. A simple example might be an adult watching Rocky and Bullwinkle with a child; both will enjoy, but on different levels. (That shows my age; doesn't it?) I'm not sure that An Episode of Sparrows quite fits into this category, but I will leave that question to those who first read it in childhood.

Unlike this wordy review, An Episode of Sparrows is tightly written, which adds to the story's poignancy.

I am not entirely sure that this is a children's book, at least not in the way we view children's literature these days. That said, this is a marvelous book about children and their place in a society recovering from a great tragedy (WW II). The children make their own community and develop skills to survive. The adults are also struggling to survive - some do it well, some miss the mark completely. But the desire to create a beautiful space in which to thrive is important to all. How each character defines that for him and herself is what makes this lovely little book so rich and beautiful. The author delicately describes the struggles of this community and their hopes and dreams for themselves and each other. Even in the most horrid of conditions, gardens may be cultivated and then with a bit of attention, the flowers will grow.

The novel is set in a postwar London struggling to recover from years of tragedy and hardship. The story focuses on children in a working-class street in South London, where stone, asphalt and rubble dominate with few gardens or patches of green. The main character is a difficult young girl named Lovejoy Mason, who has been left with an aspirational but impractical restaurant owner and his more downsto-earth wife, by their sub-tenant – Lovejoy’s irresponsible and uncaring mother.
Lovejoy finds a packet of flower seeds and plants a small secret garden in a wrecked churchyard. Tip Malone and his gang learn of Lovejoy’s garden through the young boy, Sparkey, eager to do anything to attract Tip’s favour, and destroy the garden. Lovejoy is devastated and although she is feisty, difficult and at times, aggressive, Tip is attracted to her and helps her build a second – ‘Italian’ – garden amidst the rubbled ruins of a bombed-out church.
Several adults, including two well-off, middle-aged sisters (one sympathetic to the children, the other not), the local priest and members of the constabulary, become involved in the children’s lives as a result of Lovejoy's garden – for better and for worse. The story ends with the gentle sister, Olivia, providing in her will for the futures of Lovejoy and Tip.
I picked up this book because of its setting – post World War II London – as research for my own writing project. However I enjoyed it immensely and was always on the side of the children against authority. Godden’s book is a delight.

Such an oddly written book, with so many bits of loveliness, some incredibly poetic passages, but the construction of the text was wiggly--darting from one setting to another in one paragraph, from one time to another, from one voice to another. I had to stop often and re-read just to figure out where the writing was taking me.

But the story in itself, once you get past all the strange walls you need to scramble over, works well, and offers a truthful glimpse into a time and place and people in history that is worth remembering...

Very nice tale. Lovejoy is the key character whose seeming toughness hides the tender heart within. Two elderly sisters observe the lives of Lovejoy and the other children on their street. Olivia and Angela are as different as two siblings can be. Olivia loves watching the children. Living with a health condition she finds their lively antics comforting. She especially enjoys the blossoming friendship between Tip, local tough who leads a gang, and Lovejoy. Angela views the children as hoodlums.

Lovejoy finds a package of flower seeds and discovers that she could garden. She looks around the cluttered landscape until she finds a spot she can plant. She does not know that the spot is located in Tip's gang territory. When the gang discovers the garden they destroy it. As the boys leave, Tip looks back at Lovejoy, realizing what they have done. He comforts her and helps her find an isolated place behind near a church. The two gather soil from a public area and plant a new garden. An enraged Angela calls the authorities and matters escalate from there.

This charming story reflects images of Cinderella. Why? Readers will have to discover this tale for themselves to see why. It's so well written that one wants to find other books by the author.

An Episode of Sparrows takes place in London, presumably the East End, soon after the end of the second world war. The central character is Lovejoy Mason, a child who has been abandoned by her mother and is looked after by neighbours.
Lovejoy doesn't have an easy life but when she comes across a packet of seeds she decides to start a garden on one of the bomb sites. However, the soil is of poor quality and so she takes some soil from another area and uses it for her own bomb-site garden. The seeds start to grow but a gang of boys are
territorial about what they see as their domain and they destroy the garden.
Lovejoy, however, is a resourseful girl and starts another garden on another bomb site: this time the site of a bombed out church. But now she faces another challenge because she is accused of having stolen her soil from someone else in the street.
It's not a sentimental story but overall it is delightful. Lovejoy finds love with one of the boys but one of her neighbours would jail her and throw away the key!