Run Away Home by Elinor Lyon - an orphan not in possession of a fortune, must be in want of a family

Title: Run Away Home
Author: Elinor Lyon
Publication: Fidra Books, 2007 (originally published in 1953 by Hodder and Stoughton)
Genre: Children’s fiction
Setting: 1950s Scotland

Description: Cathie Harris is an unhappy occupant at St. Ursula’s Home for Female Orphans in Birmingham. At nearly 13, she is well-cared for and Miss Abbott, who runs the home, believes Cathie’s sewing could be her career if she can learn to control her temper. Cathie longs to know where she came from but all anyone knows is that she was found alone in London, wandering after a night of bombing during WWII. The only clues are a locket with a dried flower and miniature of a dark lady, a piece of a railway ticket, and a memory of white sand. Determined to trace her family, Cathie runs away to the Scottish Highlands. On the way, she meets siblings, Ian and Sovra, from earlier Lyon books, who befriend and hide her, so they can assist with her quest. 

My Impression: Reading this book makes me want to jump on the next plane for Scotland! Elinor Lyon is barely known in the US so I did not read this as a child but my friend Julie Chuba mentioned it once as one of her favorite childhood books so I requested it via InterLibrary Loan. Not every children’s book works for an adult reader but I was charmed by the story of this feisty orphan, determined to find a trace of her family. I like the parts about the orphanage, Cathie’s desperate plotting to make the urgent journey to Scotland, and her developing friendship with Ian and Sovra, the first friends she has ever had. 

When I began reading my new copy to my 9-year-old niece last week, I was amused by the editorial comments I felt necessary to provide, “In real life, it would be very dangerous to hitchhike,” and “You don’t let strangers buy you breakfast,” and wondering with her if a tiny picture in a locket would be big enough to show detail of mountain peaks, a key plot development. There are quite a few improbable coincidences in this book but they did not diminish the appeal of the book either to Tess or me. 

The foreword to this edition contains a delightful autobiography of the author who spent five years in Edinburgh as a child and developed her love of Scotland and the Highlands then. I especially appreciated Cathie’s visit to Edinburgh Castle, where I spent a day in 2015 – she would have appreciated the tea and Victoria Sponge cake I enjoyed at the café. Lyons’ characters are like the Swallows & Amazons who are always hungry, although she specifically says she thought Ransome’s characters are so skilled at things she wanted to write about children who were less perfect. Maybe readers prefer those too: I always enjoyed the S&A books but identified most with Dorothea who is smart rather than really outdoorsy.

 

Source: Years ago, I sent Vanessa who was starting Fidra Books a photocopy of one of the other Elinor Lyon covers in return for the reprint of this book. It never came and I guess Fidra stopped publishing, which was too bad. However, someone in the UK was selling a copy last month and although she wouldn’t send it to the US, she sent it to my friend Nicky who mailed it to me. That’s a lot of work to get one book!