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Junior
Doubleday
Hardback £9.99
ISBN: 014138090X
Reviewed by Stephanie Baudet
[Armadillo 6.4 Winter 2004]
What a pleasure to read a new book by Philippa Pearce - her first full length work for twenty years.
This is a gentle, timeless tale of a lonely girl, Bet, and her friendship with a 300 year old mole. Together they unravel the amazing story of his early life when his molehill had been the cause of King William III's fall from his horse at Hampton Court and subsequent death - to the delight of the Jacobites.
But the mole is weary of the witchcraft within him and desires to be 'pure mole - all of me mole' and he asks Bet to help him. In performing this act of true friendship, Bet realises that she will lose a good friend.
The denouement is both truthful and satisfying. Bet is reunited with her mother and makes a friend and the mole becomes an ordinary mortal creature, afraid of humans and having forgotten his former life - or has he?
A philosophical story with many layers and destined to become a classic.