Drumbeats! by David Severn, for Timeslip Tuesday

 I was not drawn to the cover of Drumbeats! by David Severn (1953), which promises a wildly exaggerated colonialist encounter with "African" culture experienced through the medium of an entitled British boy.  This is not what I look for in a book (and also I don't like title with exclamation marks.  Wow me with story, I say.  Not with punctuation).  But since I have set myself to reading every time travel book published in English for children in the 20th century (with exception of long series for younger children), I bought an affordable copy when one came my way).  And the book delivered on the promise of its cover!

Four English boarding school kids, 2 girls (one of whom is the narrator) and 2 boys, come across an African Drum in the school's "museum."  When Oliver, the musician of the bunch, starts playing it, the kids find themselves observers of an English expedition in central Africa.  One of the Englishman has just stolen the drum. 

Oliver plays it again.  The kids see another episode in the explorers' journey.  Edith, our first person narrator, finds it disturbing.  She finds it more and more disturbing as the events seen during the drum's windows to the past are echoed in the boarding school present.  Oliver drums on.  It culminates with disaster striking both expedition and school.  

Through this, the kids argue about what's happening--is the drum a window to the past or a fantasy, is it causing the connections between past and present, or predicting them?  These arguments are not interesting.

Edith is also not interesting.  She has no rich inner life.  Possibly the author thought it would make her humorously relatable to constantly put herself down "I am an ordinary person"  "I was ashamed of myself" "I keep making mistakes."  If so, the author was wrong.  It just made me not to spend time with her dull pov self.

Some episodes are mildly entertaining, when Edith is describing external events and not sharing the oatmeal-like working of her thoughts.  There were not enough of these episodes.

The actual timeslip via drumming was fine (again, this was in large part due to Edith describing and not thinking...).  Yes it was stereotypes of Africa presented by a 1950s Englishman, but it wasn't as so grotesquely awful as to be unreadable.  What was happening to the expedition was not uninteresting. And the kids at least recognized that stealing the drum was a wrong thing to have done.

short answer--I will not be re-reading it.  But since I did enjoy another book by the author, I will not give up on him if I find his books going cheaply.