I've always liked Rumer Godden. Her books are compelling without being grotesque or bawdy.

I am only as an adult noticing the thread of Catholicism that runs through them. It's a fine thread, but very strong.

Sparrows takes place in post-war London. Classes struggle to maintain their places, and human nature keeps on doing what it does, showing both the good and the bad in people.

This book is, strangely, almost devoid of 'bad guys'. There are characters you like more, or less, but no characters with a real presence in the book are characterized as bad. The characters are portrayed quite realistically.

Whether this is a children's book or an adult read doesn't matter. A good story is a good story. There were some definite villains in this one, (all adults) and some really good, kind people. Eleven year old Lovejoy just wants to grow a garden and doesn't care how she does it.. She needs dirt, good garden earth. 12 year old Tip, who is a gang leader, is more or less bullied into helping her get it. Neither of them minds the work involved, but Lovejoy is not above stealing. Tip is scrupulously honest and isn't having it. Aside from that basic plot, we see inside a community of haves and have-nots, needs and desires, do-gooders and strivers.

According to the street, Tip is a scallawag headed for jail, Lovejoy is a difficult and unlovable hellion who can't be controlled. The beauty of being a reader means that we get to know their reasons, see inside their heads, and feel their emotions. Child or adult, you will be rooting for these two.

Another excellent addition to my Rumer Godden library.

I read and loved this book when I was thirteen, and picked it up again because my daughter is reading it. I loved it even more this time. It's a wry, compassionate, and wholly beautiful book that uses a seemingly simple "episode" (a desire for a garden) to explore the beauty of hope in environments hostile to the imagination and the potential that human relationships have when we set aside our prejudices and open ourselves to each other.

An Episode of Sparrows opens with a line about molehills and mountains and how to a sparrow, a molehill might just be a mountain, that line hooked me. The story is dated, you can tell the time it takes place in right away, everything sets up well and it flows alright. At first I had no idea the angle of the plot(as the copy I read lacked a cover with any imagery and was simply a blue book with the title on the side, no summary on the back, etc), but it really did shape up into a good read.

A deceptively simple story set in London in the early 1950s. "Mortimer Square, gracious and imposing, with its big houses, stood, like many other London Squares, on the edge of a huddle of much poorer streets." Catford Street is the one that quiet, reflective Olivia Chesney thinks about as she gazes out of her window, comparing the quiet square with the bustling life on the nearest of the poorer streets.

"It was always Catford Street she saw in contrast to the square...but nowadays neither was as rich or poor as Olivia thought. The Square had gone down, its big houses were mostly divided into flats....while the poor streets had come up; Catford Street though drab and shabby with children playing in the street, an open air market at the river end on Saturdays, and the Canal Works behind it, was proud and respectable. That did not prevent those same children from being a small plague in the Square."

Olivia lives in the shadow of her endlessly energetic sister, Angela--de facto, albeit self-appointed, ruler of the Square and the Square's garden committee.

The worlds of Catford Street and the Square begin to intersect when one neglected but feisty little girl named Lovejoy steals a packet of cornflower seeds and becomes determined to plant a garden in a bombed out lot on Catford Street. Lovejoy makes garden plans and finds allies among the children and grownups of Catford Street and gradually, through her eyes, we learn the dreams and struggles of life in this little neighborhood.

There are so many wonderful characters--a whole glorious world of them. The adults: Mr. Isbister, the taciturn old man who lives in a basement flat and grows sweet peas; Mrs. Cleary and Miss Arnot who keep feral cats happy on fish heads; Father Lambert, pastor of Our Lady of Sion, who knows how to really see; and Vincent Combie, the chef who dreams of bringing fine Italian cuisine to Catford Street and knows how to listen and to hope.

And then there are the children, each with a distinctive voice and personality--something few authors can do well. Little Sparkey, who hero-worships the boy-gangs who play in the bomb rubble; Tip Malone, the boy-gang leader who befriends Lovejoy; and Lovjoy herself whose cocky attitude and pride cover longing for a mother who has abandoned her.

The story is full of life and humor, small miracles and sudden tears and--when the world of Catford Street collides with the world of the Square and the formidable Angela--the story grows dark with potential tragedy. Then, in the story's final act, quiet, perennially overlooked Olivia becomes a catalyst.

Content rating G: a clean read.

I've been reading a lot of books written by goofy English ladies lately, and I am getting tired of them. This was a commuting book, one I originally bought, because a lot of women on Chicklit talked a great deal about how great Godden was, and how hard her books are to find. So when I found one, I thought, why not? Especially, because I had read one of her children's books when I was young about a family of dolls, and I loved it. Totally charming. But this book, while also charming, struck me as false and as a little twee. It tells the story of two children who, in the deprivations of post-War Britain (World War II, that is), scrimp and pinch to grow a garden in an abandoned patch of Earth. Even though they have nothing, they learn about beauty. Even though they are poor, they love beauty. Etc. It's not a totally original story, is what I am saying. The little stories are cute, and the character who wants to own a fine restaurant is a somewhat inspired character, as is the quiet older lady who secretly watches all. It just that the story didn't tell me anything that I hadn't read before in any other of these quiet English lady stories. Enough. I need something hard-boiled, I think! Bring on the Mickey Spillane!!

I read An Episode of Sparrows when I was a child growing up in post-World War II Liverpool. It was first published in 1955 when I was eight-years-old. It's said you can't go back, but I'm convinced this book is as good as I remember it. I've ordered a copy and look forward to immersing myself in it as I did as the ten-year-old searching for a bright future among the bomb sites and food shortages of post-war U.K.

AFTER RE-READING
I couldn’t have been more than ten-years-old when I first read 'An Episode of Sparrows', but I remembered with great fondness the feisty waif, Lovejoy, and her gargantuan efforts to make a secret flower garden in a hidden corner of a London bombsite in a downtrodden section of the British capital. I remembered her temporary guardian, Vincent, with his impractical ideas of running a “first-class restaurant” and his epic struggles to prevent it from sinking into bankruptcy in an area where people could barely afford a few pence to buy fish and chips wrapped in newspaper let alone pay for a three-course French dinner. I remembered the two wealthy unmarried sisters who lived in the posh square that lay at the border of Lovejoy’s working-class neighbourhood. I remembered the clash of class and culture when the sisters’ and Lovejoy’s worlds collided.
But I hadn’t remembered the subtle sophistication of ideas flying off the pages concerning morality, religion, entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. Like all good novels — written for readers of any age — those issues are understated. I certainly can’t remember being conscious of them as a ten-year-old. However, like any effective work of fiction, those underlying issues and ideas must certainly have made an impression. I obviously can’t know for sure, but I couldn’t help feeling as I re-read ‘An Episode of Sparrows’ some fifty years later that the book must have had a profound effect on me. I recognized in Rumer Godden’s story my own abomination of class discrimination in any form and a derring-do style of determination that sometimes misfires and/or backfires. I think I must have related very closely to the children in the book because I was reminded of the misery of growing up poor, However I was also reminded of moments of intense joy in small events that made life seem not only worthwhile but wonderful.
Apart from lucid realism coupled with a sophistication of ideas in ‘An Episode of Sparrows,’ the book has a suspenseful plot that sweeps the reader along. Every one of the disparate characters is finely drawn, and the descriptions of post-war London — from rubble strewn bombed-out houses to the sparkling exclusive shops of Bond Street — bring the 1950s city vividly to life. The book is also a lesson in excellent writing, including vocabulary that might challenge some adults. Although written for children, ‘An Episode of Sparrows’ makes for an engaging and thought-provoking experience for everyone.

18 SEP 2020 - oh, how I so very much enjoyed reading this book. I cried real tears for Lovejoy, Tip, and Olivia. In the end, perseverance, belief in one's self, and hope carried these characters through their journeys - together and apart. Enjoy!

This was the choice (by my mother, bless her) for our book club for July 2017.

The story is set in London in the 1950s. There are two storylines that sort of meet at the beginning and at the end.

It starts with Olivia and Angela, sisters who live in a posh house on The Square, with a lovely fenced garden in the middle. I'm sure you've seen the sorts of things. The garden is meant to be for everyone, but Angela and other residents of the Square are keen to keep it just for them, so it is fenced off and only residents can get in.

Until one day they realise that someone has been stealing things. Some flowers. Some gardening tools. Soil.

Angela suspects the children in Catford Street, a nearby, run down street where the children run wild and the parents don't care. The children are, apparently, all criminals or criminals in the making. Olivia on the other hand isn't so sure. She likes the children and she wants to know why they would take soil... "To sell, obviously!" says Angela (not a direct quote). "Don't you know you can get it for 2 and 6 at the Army and Navy Stores!" (again, not a direct quote, I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the book in front of me. Apologies).

But Olivia isn't convinced.

And she's right. Because the soil was taken by Lovejoy Mason and her friends Tip and Sparkey. Lovejoy has been somewhat abandoned by her mother, a singer in Brighton and other seaside resorts, and she lives on Catford Street with Vincent, who runs a very ambitious Italian restaurant and his wife Mrs Crombie. They simply rented a room to Mrs Mason and her daughter, and then one day... it was just the 11 year old daughter.

Lovejoy steals a packet of seeds from Sparkey, who is only five. She is taken by the seeds and what it says they can do on the packet. She finds a patch of land with the help of Tip, an 11 year old boy who lives on Catford Street too, and they start to cultivate a secret garden in an old bomb site of the Catholic church. Remember, this is the 1950s so it wasn't long ago that the bombs were falling.

Lovejoy gets a bit carried away with her garden and eventually starts taking the soil, with the help of Tip, from the garden in The Square, because she needs good soil, not the dust and mess of the bomb site.

They are caught by the gardener and taken to the police station. It is then brought to the authority's attention that Lovejoy lives with the Crombies and not her mother, and they can't afford to keep her, because Vincent's restaurant has got them into massive debt. He doesn't understand how London works, and although his restaurant and his cooking is magnificent, it is in the wrong place. Catford Street is not the place for posh restaurants. He refuses to buy food from the market too, will only buy his ingredients from the top shops - and has therefore plunged them all into pounds and pounds of debt.

His world comes crashing down at the same time as Lovejoy's, and while he and Mrs Crombie are forced to sell up and move, so Lovejoy is forced to live in the children's home - The Home of Compassion.

But then the lovely Olivia, who has been involved on the periphery of the story all the way through... well, I won't give the ending away. But let's just say, it's a happy one.

That moment when something exceeds your expectations...

4.5 stars

This book feels a tiny bit like the urban version of The Secret Garden. Although it's taken as a 'children's book', I think it's far more gritty. The plot takes place in post WW2 London, a time where there were only a few green spots on the streets. 11-year-old Lovejoy Mason finds a packet of cornflower seeds, which gets her interested in gardening. She proceeds to build a secret garden in a bombed-out churchyard and ends up transforming the lives of the people around her.

I started slow and the writing was also hard for me to get into at first, but I ended up loving it. The characters are so unforgettable, I think I'm going to reread this story when I have the time. What I like about Lovejoy is that she isn't your typical goody-two-shoes with innocent doe eyes and a naive and sweet nature; she can be selfish, feisty and difficult. I understand why she's unlikable to some readers and dubbed an anti-heroine. She's a flawed character, and that's what makes her so special to me.

Her friend Tip won my heart from the start. You wouldn't expect a boy-gang leader to be such a sweetheart. Even though they had their squabbles and arguments, I was glad that Lovejoy had someone she could actually turn to, even if he found her hard to understand sometimes. Their dynamic and chemistry was just...I feel like I need to create a shelf for it or something.

Also, *slow claps* for the pastor.

This book did a great job of making me sit back and have thoughts about compassion, religion and the ability of individuals to make a difference in the world.

So so so good! Love this book.

Another wonderful novel by Rumer Godden, the third I've read, and the last in the big omnibus edition I purchased for The Greengage Summer. Just because there are children (mostly older) in the book, it's not a children's book. Godden writes in a way I've never encountered before, a type of narrative stream of consciousness in which the reader learns a great deal without being pushed from place to place. The skill needed for this type of construction is not inconsiderable, but Godden's writing is seamless. Loved this story about Lovejoy, Tip, and Sparkey, and the poor working class neighborhood they inhabit. Charming and poignant story that could be a lovely film. I'll definitely read more from this author.