Monday, August 13, 2007

Hitch's favorite juvenile lit

In yesterday's New York Times Sunday Book Review, "atheist Christopher Hitchens" (as the Globe's Jeff Jacoby succinctly describes the British-born gadfly journalist and Vanity Fair columnist) bade a not-so-fond farewell to the "Harry Potter" series. He enjoyed reading the books aloud to his children, and he suggests hopefully that J.K. Rowling's nomenclature may have been a boon to teachers of Latin and Anglo-Saxon. But overall, Hitch says, he was disappointed with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"... and with the series, for that matter.

To what impossible standard does he hold works of juvenile literature? Rowling fans might ask. According to the Book Review's editors' note, Hitchens has also enjoyed reading Beatrix Potter aloud. As for his own childhood favorites, they include the stories of King Arthur, the novels of John Buchan, Richard Llewellyn's "How Green Was My Valley," and a book called "Dragon Island." I'd never heard of the latter, and he didn't name the author, but since I wholeheartedly concur with Hitchens's other picks, I decided to buy a copy of "Dragon Island" online. Easier said than done, though.

Let's see, could he have been referring to the out-of-print "Dragon Island" (London: 1938), by Violet M. Methley? Hmm. One rather thinks not, since Methley's subtitle is "An Adventure Story for Girls." If Hitchens intended to make a point about how broadminded he'd been as a boy, you can bet he wouldn't have been coy about it.

Might Hitchens, then, have been referring to the out-of-print "Calling Dragon Island" (London: 1949), by Michael Kendrick? Probably not, since the novel takes place, at least at first, at an English boarding school, and Hitchens's opinion of people who enjoy reading "school stories" is, he tells us in his "Deathly Hallows" review, low. ("To Trent House School there comes a new master -- a mysterious Indian named Dr. Chandi Singh Lal. Despite the man's strangeness, Larry & Co. admire him immensely for his prowess on the cricket field," according to an ABE description of Kendrick's book.)

"Dragon's Island" (New York: 1951), by Jack Williamson, is a pulp science fiction novella in which humans attempt to wipe out superior mutants (shades of the "X-Men" movies) until they realize that the mutants embody the best of humanity. I can imagine Hitchens enjoying this sort of thing as a child -- he was 2 when it was published. In fact, I almost ordered a copy... until I remembered that Hitchens had described the "Dragon's Island" he'd read as a children's book "about a family of dragons surrounded by cannibals and sharks." Back to square one.

Let's see... In 1952, C.S. Lewis published "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," the third installment in his "Narnia" series. All of which are still very much in print. As I recall, Prince Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and the others land on a Dragon Island, at one point. (Spoiler alert: Eustace turns into a dragon!) In his latest book, "God is Not Great," Hitchens grudgingly calls Lewis's Christian apologetics "magnificent, in its limited way." So is he a "Narnia" fan? Unlikely.

Despairing, I began to wonder if Hitchens was referring to a toy? Like this Dragon Island:

Or this one:

At last, though, I found Hitch's Rosebud book. (I think.) There once was published an illustrated children's book titled "Dragon Island" (London: 1946) by an author named J. Bissell Thomas. I can't find out anything online about Thomas, or the book's plot. Not even at the great Fantastic Fiction website. Amazon.co.uk lists some out-of-print books by Thomas titled "Dragon Green" and "Prince of the Dragon Green," but that's it. Still, I found a decent copy of Thomas's "Dragon Island" -- sorry, no photo available -- for $50, and I snapped it up.

Mr. Hitchens, please get in touch. I want to start a juvenile-lit book club. For adults. Who don't think much of "Harry Potter."

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 07:09 AM

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