THE LITTLE GREY MEN

Product Information

Strictly speaking gnomes (the word was coined by Paracelsus during the Renaissance) were earth-dwellers, and these three did indeed live under a tree bole, but they are equally at ease in the water and, curiously, in the air. You may have also noticed that their names are taken from the common names of native plants. The last gnomes in Britain, three tiny brothers, decide to go looking for their missing brother Cloudberry, who sailed up the river two years ago and never returned. This author's Arcadia is not so very long ago nor so very far away. It is a very British sort of place, one that may be inhabited by yeoman humans but in which the gentry are destructive intruders. The focus is on the animals and other creatures who live around the humans, their joys and sorrows. They face very real dangers, and, warning to sensitive readers: this is a darker story than The Wind in the Willows, a place where very bad things can happen and sometimes do. There is a certain amount of improbable serendipity, as befits a children's book, but the overall impression is of a story well grounded in reality. If one accepts the proposition that gnomes exist, all the rest is believable.

The plot, involving three gnomes who set off upstream in search of a fourth who went a-questing two years earlier, is thoroughly wrapped in rhapsodic descriptions of bird song and nodding wildflowers, bubbling waters, breezes and storms, grassy pastures, the pleasures of angling, and nature observed from ground level. . . . [F]ans of Wind in the Willows will feel right at home.... The story winds down to a happy twist at the end. Given patient listeners, this Carnegie Medal–winner makes a leisurely but finally engaging read-aloud. This is a story about the last gnomes in Britain. They are honest-to-goodness gnomes, none of your baby, fairy-book tinsel stuff, and they live by hunting and fishing, like the animals and birds, which is only proper and right.”—From the author’s introduction Yes, the little grey men are gnomes! Not only are they gnomes, but they are the only four remaining gnomes in Britain! They freely use words such as “love” and “contemplative”. Oates has suggested that he was imbued with a Franciscan spirit.

The Church Times Archive

The Little Grey Men established (Denys Watkins-Pitchford, A.K.A. ‘B.B.’) at the forefront of children’s literature.”—CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards You can enjoy further adventures of the Little Grey Men little grey men in the sequel to this book called "Down The Bright Stream" where the gnomes set off in their boat to find a new home... Pan, the Greek guardian of nature, is the unseen deity who protects the gnomes and forest animals, as in the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. THE depredations of humans is a persistent theme in BB’s writings; the heroes of The Little Grey Men are the last gnomes in England because of pollution from sheep dip. In its sequel, there is a poignant reference to how badgers have largely escaped harm from humans because they have rarely come into conflict with them and their interests. The trouble is, it's very much a book of it's time, and it displays a lot of the characteristics and views of that time. The benign tolerance of foreigners, who, if they step out of line are ridiculed and castigated for the fact they are foreign and consequently less entitled to respect and tolerance (I refer, of course, not to people but to animals like the red squirrel, who, if you're not aware, adversely impacted the indigenous population of grey squirrels by the anti-social behaviour of being better able to surive - being better able to store food over a wider area, amongst other things); the condescending sexism - women can't be trusted with anything mechanical; and the glorification of animal cruelty (ok, that one's a bit tentative, I admit, but it leaves a bad taste when a seven year old boy is given the brush of a fox as a glorified memento following a fox hunt).

A children's book (nothing to do with aliens) and the epic story of the last gnomes in England, who explore upstream in search of their missing brother. First published in 1942 this glorious read won the Carnegie Medal for the most outstanding children’s book of that year and has been reissued several times ; it’s latest incarnation is this kindle version, which will hopefully find it a whole new audience. BB was the pen name of Denys Watkins-Pitchford and he later wrote a sequel called, “Down the Bright Stream,” which has also been published on kindle. Denys Watkins-Pitchford had a great love of the countryside and this is reflected in his writing, which describes a realistic portrayal of nature. Although not idealised, it is wonderfully descriptive and he does not shy away from the fact that his central characters live off the countryside. They wear clothes made from mouse or bat skin, they fish and gather fruit and nuts to eat. Sometimes, times are hard and sometimes bountiful, but there it is a place of both beauty and danger. D. J. Watkins-Pitchford at Library of Congress, with 42 library catalogue records (includes work published as by BB or B.B.)

Other Topics

Still, I shouldn’t be too surprised to find this this kind of content in early-20th century nature writing. You can see it in the works of other favourites. In ‘H is for Hawk’, for example, Helen Macdonald points out the fascistic ideology in beloved classics like ‘Tarka the Otter’. My favourite example is Melissa Harrison’s treatment of anti-Semitism and nativism in the English countryside in the run up to the Great War, in her truly incredible book ‘All Among the Barley’ (read it, read it now). BB is not coy about the danger and brutality in nature: the gnomes have narrow escapes from stoats and foxes. But the Grendel of the piece, Giant Grum, is human: a brutal gamekeeper who takes murderous steps to protect his precious pheasants. Cloudberry is a boastful and rebellious loner who often leaves the group to explore the forest. He is on good terms with the greylag geese of Spitzbergen known as the hounds of heaven.