Adventure story
STELLA ROD WAY
Midway Anne Barrett (Collins 15s)
Are children interested in their own psycho- logical
problems? I doubt it very much and I must admit that at first I thought this would turn out to be one of those slightly uncomfort- able children's books written with adults really4.
in mind. But I was happily wrong in my predic-, tion. The author has a poet's flair for the con-• densed, expressive phrase, a sense of humour and a gift, rarer than might seem, for writing, absolutely natural schoolboy dialogue.
Mark, the middle member of the Munday family, suffers from an acute sense of inade-* quacy, being sandwiched, so he feels, between more distinguished siblings. He envies his older brother Sebastian his 'clever beaky face' and wishes that he, too, had one eyebrow higher than the other and a 'permanently witty sort of look.' He even envies his perpetually love- lorn sister Evie her bright red hair, and the twins, his juniors, their very real status as the youngest.
Max Munday, Mark's father, is engaged on an important piece of research to do with human memory and: 'Sometimes on his prowls Max Munday would stop and ask Seb or Evie a question and be very interested at their answers: he would look at them keenly, nod, and then go straight away and write it all down. It was Mark's dearest wish to say something that would give his father that look, make him nod his head and hurry back into the study, but it had never happened.' Mark's mother, a Hungarian, is a gay and unpredictable artist: 'It was only Mark who had a feeling that mothers ought to stay put and be there at tea- time; it was just his dullness again, he supposed.'
Adult readers may well feel that it is the parents who need to alter, but younger ones' will appreciate the unlikeliness of such a solution. It is Mark who develops his inner strength when, unawares, he conjures up the magnificent, benevolent tiger called Midway, who can appear only at those rare moments when Mark has achieved a mood of complete and balanced harmony.
This richly-loaded theme is accompanied by a slightish plot concerning a dastardly attempt to steal Max Munday's papers, important only for the splendidly wish-fulfilling way in which Mark, aided by Midway, saves the papers from a forest fire and hears his father say proudly: `This is Mark, my middle son.' For boys and girls ten to twelve.
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