A Perfect Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson - and the danger of too much imagination

Title: A Perfect Gentle Knight
Author: Kit Pearson
Publication: Penguin Canada, hardcover, 2007
Genre: Children’s Fiction
Setting: 1950s Vancouver
Audience: Middle Grade verging on Young Adult

Description: The six Bell children have relied on each other and their passion for the Knights of the Round Table to cope with losing their mother three years ago.  Their father, who was in the car accident too, is also grieving but he stays in his study and only emerges on Sundays to take the children to church and out to dinner.   The rest of the week they attend school but otherwise run wild; Sebastian, the eldest at 14, leads his siblings in knightly games every afternoon and even the 6-year-old twins are pages enthusiastically practicing their swordsmanship.  But Sebastian is being bullied at school, Roz decides she wants to be a normal junior high student, and the three youngest children are becoming rude and grubby.   Cordelia (Corrie), the narrator, begins to worry that the game is getting out of hand and is unnerved when Sebastian tells her he is the reincarnation of Sir Lancelot.  She holds the family together as long as she can,  terrified of precipitating a disaster by confiding in an adult until it is almost too late.

My Impressions: Pearson is a talented Canadian author, best known for her Guests of War trilogy, which follows the lives of Norah and Gavin Stoakes after they are evacuated from England to Canada during World War II (as you know, I love evacuation stories!).  She is gifted at writing realistic fiction with believable, imperfect characters and convincing dialogue.   Here, Corrie is vividly drawn: most of the time she is admirably calm and tries to cope despite her worries but she has no experience being a friend, only a sibling, and she has difficulty managing a new relationship, often hurting the feelings of her new friend Meredith.  It is so clear these children need a mother or at least their Aunt Madge.

Pearson’s message is that imagination is a great coping mechanism until it becomes all-consuming, and although Corrie doesn’t really have the vocabulary to put this into words she realizes the situation is serious but doesn’t know what to do about it. She can’t imagine confiding in an adult, especially as Father always needs peace to work on his book.  In my favorite scene, she tries to reason with her brother, revealing that she is young but more perceptive than he:

“It isn’t strange at all,” said Sebastian patiently.  “And probably you aren’t a reincarnation of Sir Gareth.  You would feel it if you were.  Like I do – I know Lancelot is in me.  Just like I know Guinevere is reincarnated in Jennifer so she and Lancelot can finally be together.”

“Does Jennifer know?  Does she know she’s the – What’s the word again?”

“Reincarnation.”

“Does she know she’s the reincarnation of Guinevere?”

Sebastian shook his head.  “She’s not ready to.  One day she’ll realize she’s Guinevere, but it’s not time yet.  And I don’t want to tell her too soon, in case it scares her.”

“Don’t tell her, Sebastian.  She might laugh at you.”

“Jennifer?  She’d never laugh at me!”

Corrie suddenly felt older than Sebastian.  Trying to disguise her worry, she patted his arm and said cheerfully, “Well, I’m glad you have a friend at school.”

While it is perfectly natural for Roz to slowly rebel against nonstop knightly fantasy to seek junior high popularity, she lands Corrie with too much responsibility, turning her back on the siblings like Susan Pevensie (although Susan’s siblings’ fantasy was real!).  

However, we have seen games like this where the fantasy becomes dangerously real – in Peter’s Room by Antonia Forest, The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson, and others.  Sebastian embraced this fantasy world because he could not face the loss of his mother and the cover art shows him with the long Lancelot-like hair he initially refuses to cut rather than Corrie, who is trying to keep her family sane.   

I have been wondering if academic fathers who love Shakespeare are disproportionately represented in children’s literature, but maybe I am wrong - at the moment I can only think of one much-enjoyed book, Missing Melinda, about twins whose father also taught Shakespeare and had also named a daughter Cordelia (the other sister was Ophelia).  Maybe Professor Ridgeway?

My other question was why the book was set in the 50s.  Is it because the children could more plausibly ignore a housekeeper and immerse themselves in consuming fantasy back then without anyone noticing?   Other than the references to Elvis and some trendy girl clothing, it could have been set in the present.

Source: Personal copy. I had to order this specially as it was not published in the US.   Recommended.