Once upon a time, there was a book. A book full of magic, and with the power to do good and evil. So coveted was this book that when it came into my possession, it caused much misery. It had promised shared pleasure, but spread only discord.
Both my wife and my daughter were bewitched by the book, and it became a source of bitterness between them. They were sworn enemies, stealing the book and hiding it, and muttering dark curses each against the other. The book was The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman — and the fight was over who should get to read it first.
But that tends to be the way with all great children’s literature. It inspires passion in youngsters and adults alike — and once cast, its spell enchants us for good, as the recent BBC poll to find our top 100 books revealed. More than a quarter were written for little people, from Little Women to the BFG, from Black Beauty to Winnie-the-Pooh. Meanwhile, Harry Potter works his magic in the bestseller lists, The Lord of the Rings lords it at the box office, and Pullman himself has become the first children’s writer to win the Whitbread prize. All in all, the popularity of kid-lit is riding higher than Peter Pan on a Nimbus 2000.
So what better way to tear your tots away from the Xbox and the gogglebox this summer than with a day out to discover the landscapes that inspired their favourite authors? We have chosen five children’s books that have the power to delight both parents and offspring, and tracked down the real places that inspired their hyper-real worlds. All the information you need to plan your own literary pilgrimage is here.
Just one word of advice before you set off, however. Take along two copies of the book in question: one for junior, one for mum. That way, you’ll all live happily ever after.
NORTHERN LIGHTS
Where? Oxford.
The story: Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials has been hailed as “the grown-up Harry Potter” — a perplexing idea, given the number of adults reading J K Rowling on the Tube. Northern Lights is the first instalment, introducing us to 11-year-old Lyra, a girl growing up at the fictional Jordan College, Oxford, in a hazy parallel universe lit by spirit lamps, ruled by a sinister theocracy and stalked by the Gobblers, who go in for a kind of spiritual vivisection — zombifying children by removing their “daemons”. Lyra’s mission is to rescue her friends and unlock the secrets of the enigmatic stuff known as “Dust”. After three chunky tomes, she still hasn’t quite cleaned up.
The pilgrimage: begin at Exeter College in Turl Street, the inspiration for Jordan College with its “tunnels, shafts, vaults and cellars”, where the precocious Lyra likes to perch among the gargoyles on the roof. Pullman was an undergraduate here, and would scramble along the parapet to parties from his room at the top of staircase 8. You can also visit the Bodleian (“Bodley’s”) Library just behind it — in the novels, a receptacle for learned books about the alethiometer, Lyra’s magic gadget for seeing the truth.
Just north of town is Jericho, the real-life canal quarter where Pullman’s raffish “Gyptian” people tie up their narrowboats, and where Lyra searches for the kidnapped Billy Costa at exotic-looking St Barnabas Church. In her later adventures, she frequents Oxford’s Botanic Gardens, where you can sit on the bench that becomes a trysting place for Lyra and her comrade-in-arms, Will Parry.
Best of all for atmosphere, though, is the Pitt Rivers Museum, where Lyra examines a display of dusty (and Dusty) trepanned skulls. The museum really is stuffed with anthropological booty, such as shrunken heads and punctured skulls — top entertainment for kids.
The details: this November, Pullman will publish a companion piece to the trilogy, called Lyra’s Oxford, complete with a cloth map delineating his reimagined city. In the meantime, a Welcome to Oxford guide from tourist information on Broad Street (£1; 01865 726871) will lead you to Exeter College (open afternoons; admission free); the Bodleian (free; 01865 277224); the Botanic Gardens (£2.50; 01865 286690) and the Pitt Rivers Museum (free; 01865 270927).
Make a weekend of it: Cotswold House (01865 310558), in town, is a comfy and affordable stone-built place with friendly owners, and it welcomes children over six; from £95, B&B, for a family room for three. Or splash out at Raymond Blanc’s Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Great Milton (01844 278881), which also likes families; £315 for four, including breakfast.
THE TALE OF MRS TIGGY-WINKLE
Where? Newlands Valley, in the Lake District.
The story: in the days when Potter meant Beatrix, not Harry, there lived a prickly washerwoman with a bonnet full of spikes. Her house is a cave in the Lakeland fells, and we meet her when a farm girl named Lucie mislays her pocket-handkins and trots off up the valley in search of them.
Lucie’s path ends at a stout door in the mountainside, with “a nice hot singey smell” and a rather astonishing resident. This is Mrs Tiggy-Winkle the hedgehog, busy washing a scarlet waistcoat for Cock Robin, stockings for Sally Henny Penny and the rest.
