John Masefield’s The Midnight Folk was published in 1927 to great acclaim—so much so it received a sequel The Box of Delights. I came across this children’s book in search of a Halloween tale in the spirit of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. I kept it on my list until October but put it down halfway through that month as the novel wasn’t what I expected.
While I have entitled this post a “review,” this may stray far from a typical review of a book and more of an analysis of how much children’s novels have changed in the last one hundred years. If I had to review it, I would say it was disappointing, jumbled, and tedious. It has long stretches that had nothing to do with the plot, and the narrative was nonsensical at times. Pretty harsh. I struggled to read all of it until I had to adjust my attitude and read it in the spirit for which it was intended. A spirit of a bygone era.
Now, some of my criticism remains. Compared to The Wizard of Oz, written a couple of decades earlier, The Midnight Folk pales in comparison and ages far worse. The Oz series by Baum remains widely read today because it has the landmarks of children’s writing. Though Baum writes down to his readers (a no-no today, and something The Midnight Folk doesn’t do), The Wizard of Oz has a solid plot, creative characters, and memorable sequences. The Midnight Folk lacks all of this.
Again, in the 1920s, books for children were limited and those that existed were fairly dry. After fairy tales, you didn’t have much of a selection. This gap was filled by The Midnight Folk. If you think of it as a loosely coupled set of short stories to engage the imagination of children, it’s a far better reading experience. Witches, talking animals, pirates, mysterious maidens, mermaids along with rainstorms, typhoons, desert islands all combine into a sequence of adventurous stories. The book also has a setting, an English estate with a surrounding countryside, that is perfect for our young character to explore. Unfortunately, there are no chapters, another downside. But if there were, each chapter would be an exciting jaunt for our main character Kay. Where will he go this time and what trouble will he get into?
Once I realized this wasn’t a Halloween tale—yes, the main antagonists are witches but they could just as well be a group of evil women—and more of a disconnected adventure tale, reading it became easier. And I could see how it would inspire children in the 1920s, including Madeleine L’Engle who wrote the Afterword in my copy.
Be warned, it has racial stereotypes that I wish weren’t present, and the lack of chapter breaks is maddening. Nonetheless, I would recommend it to future writers who want to break into middle grade books. This is what you don’t do: too many characters, ex deus machina, bait-and-switch, and long sequences. It should help generations to come write better stories for young, creative readers.
And while Box of Delights looks like a lot of fun, I’ll pass.