Book review: Nancy and Plum by Betty MacDonald

The thirty-sixth book I read in 2016 was Nancy and Plum, a children's book by Betty MacDonald, author of the classic Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series.  Unlike that series, this book hasn't stayed in print since its original publication in 1952.  This is a reissue apparently inspired by a few of the biggest names in modern children's literature: Jeanne Birdsall of The Penderwicks, who wrote the introduction to this edition, and Mary GrandPré, illustrator of the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter series, who provided new illustrations.

It is, in my opinion, a travesty that this book was allowed to fall out of print. It is a delight, if tropey as all get-out.  Nancy and Plum are orphaned sisters who live in a boarding house run by the evil Mrs. Monday.  (Are there any good people who run orphanages in children's literature?  They're neck-and-neck with stepmothers in the evil sweepstakes.)  Mrs. Monday mistreats the two, knowing that she'll never have to answer for it, going so far as to steal the Christmas gifts sent by their only distant relative to give to her spoiled niece Mirabelle.  Nancy and Plum are, in the tradition of mistreated orphan girls everywhere, both good and clever and well-liked by all their non-evil peers.

Discovering the existence and vague benevolence of their Uncle John, Nancy and Plum attempt to contact him secretly and tell him how they are being mistreated.  When Mrs. Monday and Mirabelle conspire not only to keep them from him but also to persuade him that Nancy and Plum are spoiled, ungrateful liars, the sisters run away and find sanctuary with a childless farm couple.  When Mrs. Monday, with the deceived Uncle John, tracks them down to force them to return (both for the money Uncle John pays for their board and just for the continued pleasure of being mean to them), it's up the farmer and his wife, the town librarian (as guaranteed to be good in a children's story as a stepmother is to be evil), and a school teacher to reveal the truth and expose Mrs. Monday's perfidy.

Everything turns out exactly as you expect it to, which is both a feature and a bug in a story of this type: It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy to see virtue rewarded and evil punished, but an adult reader can't help but feel the loss of any complexity to the narrative.  In addition, GrandPré's illustrations fail to match the text.  Like Quentin Blake, her pictures are notable for their lived-in messiness, but when the book mentions on more than one occasion how tightly the girls' hair is braided so that no loose strands can escape and yet every picture shows them with loose and messy braids and hair falling in their face, it's on the illustrator to convey what the author intended, not just to draw stuff the way she wants to.