The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley

This was on the reading list for my MA in Children’s Literature a few years ago, and initially thought, “Yes, of course I’ve read it… it’s about children, underwater… and - I dunno, chimney sweeps? Don’t they come into it somewhere?” After which I actually read it and, well, suffice to say it’s completely insane. Think Tristram Shandy but for kids. Read it and you’ll never again assume that the experimental novel only started in the 20th century.

“But surely if there were water-babies, somebody would have caught one at least?”

Well. How do you know that somebody has not?

“But they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would each say about it.”

Ah, my dear little man! that does not follow at all, as you will see before the end of the story.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

Well, everyone knows this one. Ratty and Moley, naughty Mr Toad, boats and rivers, “Poop Poop!” etc etc. But to my mind, the best - and most unusual stories - in this book are the ones that don’t feature Toad at all. And my favourite, which has to be the strangest of all, is The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in which Ratty and Mole go out on a summer’s night to look for Otter’s missing baby boy (otterlet? otterling?), eventually find him on a mystical island being looked after by none other than the Great God Pan, and then forget the whole thing. You can see why they tend to leave it out of the film adaptations.

“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,” whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

What’s that? A fairy-tale, sweetened up by Disney, I hear you say? Surely not! And it’s not even as if the film of Pinocchio is a particularly happy one, what with all the drinking and the smoking and the boys turned into donkeys. If the Disney film is that bad, what on earth is the book like? Well, even worse, unsurprisingly. Pinocchio is an irredeemably annoying character who gets Gepetto sent to prison, kills the wise old cricket (yes, you read that right), and burns his own feet off - and that’s just in the first five chapters. Probably one to avoid, unless you’re into delinquent marionettes or misery lit.

As knocking was of no use, Pinocchio, in despair, began to kick and bang against the door, as if he wanted to break it. At the noise, a window opened and a lovely maiden looked out. She had azure hair and a face white as wax. Her eyes were closed and her hands crossed on her breast. With a voice so weak that it hardly could be heard, she whispered:

“No one lives in this house. Everyone is dead.”

“Won’t you, at least, open the door for me?” cried Pinocchio in a beseeching voice.

“I also am dead.”

“Dead? What are you doing at the window, then?”

“I am waiting for the coffin to take me away.”

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie

Peter Pan is a familiar figure thanks to numerous film and panto adaptations over the years. But before the whole Wendy and Neverland story, a much earlier version of Peter appears in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (itself based on Barrie’s earlier book The Little White Bird) in which Peter is a seven day old baby who rides a goat, and hangs out with the birds and the fairies in Kensington Gardens. And if you think that sounds weird, you’d be absolutely right. One look at the illustrations in the Rackham edition (see above) and you’ll understand why the older, more swashbuckling version of Peter Pan is the one who made it big.

If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a little girl, she will say, 'Why, of course I did, child'; and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she will say, 'What a foolish question to ask; certainly he did.' Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, 'Why, of course I did, child,' but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.

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