Narrative feature
Jacqueline Wilson: 'The first book that made me cry'
Rumer Godden’s An Episode of Sparrows, first published in 1955, focuses on the roaming children — the ‘sparrows’ — of a shabby street in bomb-torn London. When ten-year-old Lovejoy Mason finds a packet of cornflower seeds and decides to create an ‘Italian’ garden hidden in a rubble-strewn churchyard, the consequences are life-changing for all who become involved. Below is the foreword to a recent reissue of the novel (Virago Modern Classics, £7.99, Spectator Bookshop, £7.49).
Another secret garden
I’m not sure if Rumer Godden wrote An Episode of Sparrows for children or adults. It was originally published on an adult…
Another secret garden
I’m not sure if Rumer Godden wrote An Episode of Sparrows for children or adults. It was originally published on an adult…