The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart ~ 1971. This edition: Brockhampton Press, 1971. Illustrated by Shirley Hughes. Hardcover. ISBN: -340-15203-6. 127 pages.
In the interests of keeping caught up with my ACOB self-imposed committment, I’m going to try to zip off three quick book posts tonight, of absolutely dissimilar novels, so hold on to your hats.
All three books (this one, Out of the Deeps/The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham, Saint Jack by Paul Theroux) deserve the full scholarly treatment, but they’re not going to get it today – at least not from me.
Starting with the “easiest”, then. Here we go!
This juvenile adventure story from the romantic thriller writer Mary Stewart was her first published work for younger readers, and it is an absolute charmer.
The whole time I read this one (and it’s a quick read, maybe 2 hours, tops) all I could think of is what a fantastic read-aloud book it would be. It only needed a warm little body or two snuggled close to make it absolute heaven. This one is going on the extra-special save-for-eventual-grandkids shelf. If you don’t have a handy one that belongs to you around, it’s almost worth borrowing a small child for!
Poor Mary, indeed! Parents gone off to America for a month, older twin siblings happily off visiting friends, and Mary’s own much-anticipated stay with cousins-by-the-sea cancelled unexpectedly, our young protagonist is landed with an elderly aunt in the deepest depths of the country.
Great-Aunt Charlotte is kind as kind can be, but she’s mostly deaf and spends a lot of time napping, and her flustery lady-companion isn’t much of a kindred spirit to a 10-year-old girl either. The few local children of a similar age are away, so Mary is reduced to following the brusque (though kindly) gardener around, hindering him in his work as she tries to help. Nothing is going right; what a dismal summer this is turning into…
We all know what happens next, right?
Yes, Mary meets an unexpected friend. In this case, the friend turns out to be a small black cat with emerald-green eyes, who chums up in the most satisfactory fashion, finding his way into Mary’s room at night, purring his way into her heart.
Tib, as the gardener christens the cat, is a feline of purpose and initiative, and he promptly and firmly leads Mary into the woods, to a secluded copse of oak trees, where she finds the most wonderful thing she has ever seen. It’s a mysterious flower:
The leaves, set in stiff rosettes, were of a curious bluish-green, mottled like frogs, and above them on slender stems hung the flowers, clusters of graceful purple bells, whose throats were streaked with silver, and whose pistils, like long tongues, thrust out of the freaked throats in stabs of bright gold.
Mary knelt down on the fallen branch and gazed at the flowers, while beside her sat the little black cat waving his black tail, and watching her out of his green, green eyes.
Turns out that the flower has some interesting properties, related to the requirements of witches, and before she knows it Mary finds herself mounted on a disturbingly lively broomstick, whooshing through the clouds, Tib hanging on for dear life. Down they eventually come, to the gates of a large country house, all turrets and battlements and such. A large sign informs Mary that she has come to ENDOR COLLEGE, All Examinations Coached for by A Competent Staff of Fully-Qualified Witches…
Swept up by Headmistress Mumblechook, Mary tries and tries to explain that she really shouldn’t be there, but her explanation falls on deaf ears (or are they?) and she gets the grand tour befits a newly enrolled student.
Things turn forbodingly grimmer the deeper and deeper Mary gets into the situation, and, well, let’s leave it right there.
Let me just say that these witches aren’t of the benevolent white magic type, they are well and truly up to mischief, and Mary will need all the luck that comes her way in order to extricate herself from their grasp.
The grand finale chase scene is worthy of Mary Stewart at her action sequence best (which is very good indeed), and the ending is quite lovely, in that everyone gets what they deserve.
Though I had to dock a full point in my personal ratings system for an utter lack of discussion as to why the Endor College witches and wizards are up to the awful thing it is that they are up to – and my adult brain really wanted to know what that motivation was, though likely a young reader/listener wouldn’t care a jot – this one gets a happy 9/10.
I was inspired to bring this book down from the shelf where it has been sitting ever since its lucky acquisition a year or so ago at a library book sale by this post at There Will Be Books.
Grateful thanks to Karyn for the nudge. I had been waiting for the right time to read The Little Broomstick; it was on my radar for sure because I’d heard about the anime based on it just a few months ago, and I was startled and quite pleased to see one of Mary Stewart’s works in the spotlight – I have a deep fondness for her vintage for-adults thrillers – and I remember telling myself, “You’d better read that children’s book. Soon!”
Yes, indeed, it has indeed happened that this slight but engrossing tale has been picked up by Japanese anime Studio Ponoc, the new home of a number of ex-Studio Ghibli animators, and reworked into an action-adventure film titled Mary and the Witch’s Flower.
Three rousing cheers for Japanese readers of old English-language children’s books, for in recent years we have seen a number of these reimagined with respectful and clever transformation into a whole different art form, namely Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, The Secret World of Arriety (based on Mary Norton’s The Borrowers), and Joan G. Robinson’s When Marnie Was There.
If you are in the B.C. lower mainland and are even the slightest bit tuned in to anime culture, I envy you greatly, as you will have a chance to watch Mary and the Witch’s Flower at the Vancouver International Film Festival in the coming week. (Subtitled trailer here, and English-dubbed trailer here.) And a treat it will no doubt be, whether or not you bring a child with you as your cover ploy!
Leaves & Pages 
Perfect for my granddaughter’s upcoming birthday, I thought, and hastened over to amazon… yes, it is available, at prices ranging from $151 to $356! Alas, it won’t be a birthday gift after all.
Oh, gosh! That much?! I won’t tell you how much I paid for my pristine first edition hardcover in a perfect dust jacket. Okay, maybe I will. It was $1.00. In the right place at the right time, sometimes. I do believe there is a paperback reissue coming out very soon, in order to tie in with the theatrical release of the film in North America. Let me see, where did I see that…aha, here we are. It’s coming out in paperback April 5, 2018. https://www.hachettechildrens.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781444940190. Maybe too late for that birthday, though.
Out of curiousity I ran a quick Abebooks seach. The Little Broomstick starts at $60.00 Canadian for a beat-up hardcover – “tatty and torn” says the seller description – and climbs sharply from there. I’ll bet all of the cheaper copies have already been snapped up by anime fans; there’s been quite the buzz about the movie for some months now.
I just saw Mary and the Witch’s Flower this past weekend. It was perfect, from start to finish. Derivative, as reviews say, but derivative of the very best of Studio Ghibli, and paired with such a charming story, I adored every moment. Thanks so much for this review; I’ve since been wondering what the book was like!
Oh, such good news. I had high hopes for it. Yes, you can see the Ghibli influence even in the trailers, and I was wondering how that would be handled in the movie, and if it would be a plus or a minus. Thank you for the comment. 🙂
Wow! Sounds so interesting and I love Shirley Hughes! Thank you!
Thanks, you’ve just nudged me to read The Little Broomstick, I bought a copy of it last year. I had no idea that anime was often based on English language books, my son and his wife have always loved anime.
Hi, This is a lovely post about one of my favourite children’s books. I have been blogging about it myself, most recently in a discussion of the differences between the UK and US editions. And I can hardly wait for Mary and the Witch’s Flower to arrive in the UK in May.
Great post, thank you!
Allison
Oh, lovely to hear from you. Thank you for the comment. Isn’t it interesting how editors like to alter books when taking them across the Atlantic? I really do think they could save their energy; the original version is generally the best. Readers aren’t as dumb as all that; even young readers can figure out the cultural references belonging to a sister society. It’s good to stretch the brain here and there, don’t you think? 🙂
Hi, I agree with you completely and I’d say Mary Stewart did too – her notes on the US publisher’s proposed deletions and amendments to The Little Broomstick make clear that she thought children should not be written down to. Just a pity the book-pruning went ahead!
Reminds me of the Mary Norton 1940s books Bonfires and Broomsticks and The Magic Bed Knob. When these were combined into one volume for overseas republication as Bedknob and Broomstick, parts were edited/rewritten to leave out mention of the war, which left for some awkward references which didn’t really make sense without that context. I don’t think it is ever a good idea to dumb books down; children are much more capable of understanding unfamiliar references through context and relevent explanation from their elders than they are perhaps given credit for.
I haven’t read those books, it sounds like an odd editorial decision! I think you are right about children being able to pick up on references. Perhaps there is also an element that children are used in everyday life to not being told or understanding the full picture so they are quite accustomed in reading to carrying on and gleaning what they can? (I write this because I re-read The Dark is Rising over Christmas as part of the twitter readathon and I was surprised how often I had to stop to check what I knew of English folklore – I’m in the UK but Scottish and, for example, somehow I have gone through life associating Herne the Hunter with Sherwood Forest rather than Windsor… My point being that my childhood reading of the book was pre-google and I’m pretty sure I must have just shrugged and read happily on.)
Exactly! A lot of what I read when young was full of bemusing-to-me incidents, but I carried on regardless. It didn’t put me off at all, and then when the penny dropped, sometimes years later, it was such an “Aha!” moment. Maybe that’s why it’s so much fun to read “children’s books” we’ve loved in our adult years? To round out that perspective. We never read the same book twice, if you know what I mean. (I’m a stalwart re-reader; that’s why I keep everything even remotely appealing and why our home overflows with books – you just never know when you might want to take another go at something!)
I’m absolutely a re-reader too – I wouldn’t admire a good painting or poem only once so why wouldn’t I want to re-read a good book! As you say, as we develop and change we experience books in different ways and so never read the same book twice.
Oh, thanks for this. I am a long-time Mary Stewart fan, but have never read her children’s book or Arthurian novels. Fortunately, there’s 1 copy at the Toronto Public Library and I am the third to put a hold on it.
I hope you enjoy it! I am now keen to find her other fantasy for children, Ludo and the Star Horse. Something about travelling thropugh the zodiac, apparently. Could be interesting. I haven’t read the Arthurian ones, either. Maybe someday. I am so fond of the T.H. White retelling of the Arthur stories that I’m a bit leery of all others.
Also, nice to recognize the Shirley Hughes drawings. She illustrated my 1960ish copy of The Painted Garden, which I hope is still somewhere in my house. (Sometimes books slip out when I’m not looking.)
Grand illustrator! So many fantastic artists in that era working in the book illustration field. Something which has fallen by the wayside in recent decades, it seems like.
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