The Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter

Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m always interested in those moments when you pick up a book without knowing anything about it at all. For me, The Children Who Stayed Behind caught my eye because of the cover but also because it’s a post-war Puffin. These are a kind of legendary imprint when it comes to children’s literature because they embodied this kind of radical liberalism and hope for what a new world might be. The work of editors such as Eleanor Graham and Kaye Webb helped develop a list of titles which still resonate today. A post-war Puffin is always an interesting thing and one which is worth paying attention too. You can always spot them as well by their distinct design work.

The cover, as I said, did the work for me here. It showed a group of children posing against an armoured car against the backdrop of the Brighton seafront and I was sold. I was more sold when it came to the premise: Brighton was being evacuated due to the imminent invasion of the Germans during World War Two. The only people that were left were the children from two families – and they do not like each other very much at all. I mean, that’s interesting – right? And it’s more and more provocative when you start to tease it apart. The image of the Brighton seafront lit up as the country’s invaded. The idea of a handful of children being the frontline. The idea of an alternate history hinging over a missing and much loved rabbit.

When it comes down to it, however, The Children Who Stayed Behind feels a little too slender to hold all of this inside it. The edition I read was just over 150 pages and that’s not a lot of space to do a hell of a lot of work. The ending was a little too swift for me and the beginning a little too long and so you end up feeling rushed when you shouldn’t and taking your time when you should be being a hell of a lot more purposeful. But that’s not to say that Carter is a bad writer because he’s far from that. Brighton lives here and in intimate, known detail. The dynamics of the friendship group are charming and I rather loved how he handled the sudden exodus of the adults. He’s also unafraid of a kind of Blytonesque brutality: there’s a moment when one child is ‘punished’ by the other family and I had to reread the page several times to realise that yes, the child is being put out to sea in a lifeboat which then immediately loses its oars.

There’s so much that’s interesting here but it’s never quite wholly fulfilled. But I do wonder if this is because of the fact that it’s 1958 and children’s literature isn’t quite where this book needs it to be in order to do so. (Time-slip has been happening for a while with books like A Traveller in Time and we’re also about to see Tom’s Midnight Garden storm into the world, but alternate history? Less pronounced, I think).

My point isn’t to say that this is a bad book because it’s far from that. Carter’s writing is fluid and sharp and he’s fiercely readable. I’m so intrigued by everything that he gives us here. It’s almost a thought experiment at points.

(My point isn’t also about the absence of alternate history books because I bet they’re out there and I’m just drawing a blank on them).

My point is, I think, that were this published now, with all the liberty that time and distance brings and with an extra fifty pages or so, you’d be nominating it for all the medals in the world.

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