To the end, and not only in her fiction, she had an innate wisdom and generous spirit that reached out to life: only last summer she enthralled a west Norfolk primary school ("she had them just where she wanted them", marvelled the teacher) while herself eager to learn about the local carrstone - dark brown sandstone containing grains of iron. She had been visiting the Seven Stories children's book centre in Newcastle when she became ill. She was a star, from that era nostalgically called the golden age of children's literature, whose reputation blazed beyond the passing fads of reviewers or children: to John Rowe Townsend, himself a major influence in children literature, "she was the most brilliant of us all".There are also obituaries in The Telegraph, The Independent, and The Times.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Philippa Pearce obituaries
Children's author Philippa Pearce, whose books include Tom's Midnight's Garden, has died at the age of 86. The Guardian has an obituary by Stephanie Nettell.
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I was saddened to hear of the death of Philippa Pearce.
ReplyDeleteI recall the first ever dramatisation of her Tom's Midnight Garden in 1968 produced for the Merry Go Round children's programme. I was seven or eight at the time and watched it at school. In the light of history not the best dramatisation but the first.
Does anyone else remember this?