Minnow on the Say (novel)
{{short description|Children's novel by Philippa Pearce}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=November 2017}}
{{infobox book
| name = Minnow on the Say
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image = Minnow on the Say.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = First edition
| author = Philippa Pearce
| illustrator = Edward Ardizzone
| cover_artist =
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| genre = Novel
| publisher = Oxford University Press
| published = 1955
| external_url =
| dewey= 823.8
| ISBN= 0-486-29256-8
| congress= PR4172 .W7 2007
| oclc= 71126926
}}
Minnow on the Say is a children's novel written by English writer Philippa Pearce, first published by Oxford University Press in 1955.Pearce, Philippa, (1978) Minnow on the Say, London: Puffin, 1978: Title page verso {{ISBN|9780140310221}} Like many of her books, the novel is set in the area where she grew up, specifically in an old mill near Cambridge.Pearce, Philippa, (1978) Minnow on the Say, London: Puffin, 1978: Explanatory notes {{ISBN|9780140310221}}[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/oct/14/booksforchildrenandteenagers "Still Exploring the Midnight Garden"], an interview with Philippa Pearce, The Guardian, Saturday 14 October 2000, accessed 20/02/2017 It was published in the United States in 1958 under the title The Minnow Leads to Treasure.[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1401135 The Minnow Leads to Treasure] at WorldCat The novel has been twice adapted as a television drama.
Plot
One summer in the 1930s, two boys use a canoe, the Minnow, on the Say River to search for a treasure concealed by an ancestor of one of the boys at the time of the Spanish Armada. They believe a short poem holds the clue to its location.
Inspiration
Philippa Pearce grew up in an old mill house in Great Shelford. In 1951 Pearce spent a long period in a Cambridge hospital recovering from tuberculosis. She passed the time thinking about a canoe trip she had taken many years before, which became the inspiration for her first book. According to The Guardian, "She brightened the long days in bed by savouring in her imagination every second of a canoe trip on the river that had run beside the garden of that childhood home five miles away. Convalescing, she wove those memories into Minnow on the Say (1954) which, after being rejected by one publisher, became a runner-up for the Carnegie Medal."[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/02/guardianobituaries.booksforchildrenandteenagers "Philippa Pearce: One of the finest children's writers of her generation."] Obituary, The Guardian (London, England) 2 Jan. 2007. NewsBank. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.
It was inspired by the area where she had been raised: the villages of Great and Little Shelford became Great and Little Barley. Cambridge became Castleford in the book and lost its university; the River Cam became the River Say.
Reception
Pamela Whitlock in The Spectator commented at the time of first publication: "Minnow on the Say will provide a fresh experience for readers who expect every book to whirl them into quick fire thrills. From its first pages they will become snared in a delightful web that is more than just a new adventure."
Whitlock, Pamela. The Spectator; London195.6648 (25 Nov 1955): p.35 / 733.
American writer Daria Donnelly commented in Commonweal in 2000: "Philipa Pearce's 1958 Tom's Midnight Garden [...] is considered one of the finest novels written for children, "as near as any book I know to being perfect in its construction and writing" according to critic John Rowe Townsend. But I think Pearce's recently republished first novel, Minnow on the Say [...] is even better."Donnelly, D. (2000). [https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/big-questions-small-readers "Big Questions for Small Readers"]. Commonweal, 127(20), 23-26. accessed 21/12/2017
It was a commended runner-up for the annual Carnegie Medal.
[http://web.ccsu.edu/library/nadeau/award%20books/CarnegieMedal.htm "Carnegie Medal Award"]. 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). Retrieved 9 July 2012. In 1959, it was conferred the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for books deemed to "belong on the same shelf" as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
Adaptations
Minnow on the Say, a Canadian TV drama based on the book, aired in 1960.[http://www.film.queensu.ca/CBC/Med.html Allan, Blaine, "CBC Television Series, 1952-1982: MEDICAL EXPLORERS to Ms!"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100311085817/http://www.film.queensu.ca/cbc/Med.html |date=11 March 2010 }}, Queen's Film and Media In the UK, the story was read on Jackanory in 1966[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0774284 Jackanory: Minnow on the Say] at IMDb and a BBC serial adaptation, Treasure over the Water, aired in 1972.[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0331401 Treasure Over the Water] at IMDb
References
{{Portal|Children's literature}}
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=JqnuAwAAQBAJ Minnow on the Say] at Google Books
Category:British children's novels
Category:1955 children's books
Category:Novels set in Cambridgeshire
Category:Novels set in the 1930s
Category:Oxford University Press books