Friday's Tunnel, and February's Road, by John Verney

I have an online friend who is a connoisseur of vintage English children's books, of which I too am fond.  She has the advantage over me in that she is actually English, and so has much greater access to out-of-print books.  For instance, she's enthused repeatedly over the years about the books John Verney wrote about the Callendar family--how much fun they are, how intelligent they are, how much she loves the main characters, etc.

My local public library, which for many years had a fossilized children's collection, still had the third and fourth books when I moved to town, which I snatched up when they were weeded (it was really beautifully serendipitous how I arrived on the scene just as weeding was beginning again), and I have for years kept a look out for the first two--Friday's Tunnel and February's Road, to no avail.  But the first two eluded me, so when I was offered review copies of Friday's Tunnel and February's Road, which Paul Dry Books has just reprinted as affordable paperbacks, I was enthusiastic in my yes please.

February Callendar, the point-of-view character for the first two books, is the oldest girl in a large English family living in an old farmhouse.  Her parents were more interested in playing with words than giving their children sensible names, so her older brother is Friday, although the four younger sisters were spared that joke.  It's not otherwise a tremendously eccentric family (though like ylarge, intelligent, and opinionated fictional English family from the mid-20th century the provide plenty of entertainment) , and their daily lives of arguing about whose turn it is to milk, pony rides, and free range exploration of a wonderfully beautiful bit of the English countryside are fascinatingly different from modern American life.

When the first book, Friday's Tunnel (1959), begins, Friday is fixated on digging a tunnel through the chalk cliff at the edge of their land (with is perhaps a little eccentric), and is actually making progress.   Little do any of the Callendar's know that the tunnel digging is going to result in the family mixed up in an international crisis, involving a strange new mineral from a Mediterranean Island that could (this being the height of the Cold War era) be used to make a weapon even more powerful than the current atomic bombs....February finds herself following the threads of the international mystery that is taking place in her stomping ground until she ends up in real danger.  It's a gripping read, thrilling at times, at others offering the more relaxed pleasure of spending time with an large, interesting family.

The second book, February's Road (1961), presents a new crisis, although on a more local scale.  A new highway is going to be built right against the Callendar's property, cutting them off from the country side they love, and there seems to be no good reason why the area of outstanding beauty was chosen when other routes would have made more sense..  Of course February is against the road, but though she's suspected by some of sabotage, the solution to re-locating the road comes from following the money, and enlisting the help of the press.  So not quite as exciting, but still a fun read.

But what, I wonder, will modern American middle grade youth (for the series, I think, is best suited to 10-12 year olds) make of them?  I'd recommend them to kids who last year enjoyed the Vanderbeeker series for the large, entertaining family overcoming difficulties), or perhaps Sheila Tunage's books (Three Times Lucky, etc.) for the plucky kids solving mysteries in a very real, particular place that's a character of its own, and who enjoy the fantastical--the Callendar family books aren't science fiction, but might well be so strange to the modern readerer that they have the same feel....

Although I'm not as much of a fan as my aformentioned English firiend, I enjoyed the books lots! I'm very glad Paul Dry reprinted the books, and am looking forward to reading my copies of the next two, Ismo and Seven Sunflower Seeds, and then looking for the fifth, Samson's Hoard.  

As an extra bonus, the reprints include the original illustrations by the author, such as this one of the Callendar family Christmas, from February's Road:

And as a final postscript, Paul Dry's Young Reader list is not long, but it is very interesting (and includes a Rosemary Sutcliffe book I don't have, and medieval fiction by Barbara Leone Picard which I have heard is very good.....). I will be very curious to see what they publish next!