REREADING: Toby at Tibbs Cross
Aug. 30th, 2010 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI mentioned this book when I was reviewing The School on the Moor, which is about Tabitha (Toby)'s earlier adventures. I had forgotten I'd owned it and couldn't find it anywhere. Well, recently, I found the copy - it had slipped under a bookcase, essentially, and was hidden by boxes - and decided to reread it. I think I'm still missing a book or two in this series, though.
Toby at Tibbs Cross: Dorita Fairlie Bruce. Oxford 1944
This could have been titled 'Toby's War Work'; set during 1940, Toby is adjusting to having left school and being an adult. She has had some training in land work and wants to 'do her bit', not take good friend Dick Trevor seriously and get engaged. Friends suggest that she helps out Charity Sheringham, who has inherited a farm near the Chanel, but knows very little of farming and needs a trustworthy second in command. Toby and she strike it off immediately, as do their pets. Farming, like everything, is affected by the war, but when a mysterious plague starts affecting local animals, Toby is not only worried but suspicious. She unburdens herself on a visit to Town with the Trevors, which leads to unexpected danger for Toby and, just maybe, a happy ending she wasn't ready for before war and all it has taught her.
To be frank, I would have preferred this book if it had stayed with Toby on the land. The romances are your usual for girls' books of this era, but it is in the plotting that Fairlie Bruce loses me (a quick skim of the review I link to above reminds me that I didn't much like Moor. Both the love interests go through similar disappearances and the German-foiling is fantabulously OTT. It's not so much Toby being in the right place at the right time that got to me, it's the stock villain and Dick's involvement. We also have the whimsical jumping into animals' POV, which I don't love, although I did like farm hand Zach and his affinity with them. On some level, I felt bad for not going along with it, because it's well-meant propaganda, and the shadow of war is there.
Over the weekend, I also reread Princess Charming, so I'll post my thoughts about that soon.
Toby at Tibbs Cross: Dorita Fairlie Bruce. Oxford 1944
This could have been titled 'Toby's War Work'; set during 1940, Toby is adjusting to having left school and being an adult. She has had some training in land work and wants to 'do her bit', not take good friend Dick Trevor seriously and get engaged. Friends suggest that she helps out Charity Sheringham, who has inherited a farm near the Chanel, but knows very little of farming and needs a trustworthy second in command. Toby and she strike it off immediately, as do their pets. Farming, like everything, is affected by the war, but when a mysterious plague starts affecting local animals, Toby is not only worried but suspicious. She unburdens herself on a visit to Town with the Trevors, which leads to unexpected danger for Toby and, just maybe, a happy ending she wasn't ready for before war and all it has taught her.
To be frank, I would have preferred this book if it had stayed with Toby on the land. The romances are your usual for girls' books of this era, but it is in the plotting that Fairlie Bruce loses me (a quick skim of the review I link to above reminds me that I didn't much like Moor. Both the love interests go through similar disappearances and the German-foiling is fantabulously OTT. It's not so much Toby being in the right place at the right time that got to me, it's the stock villain and Dick's involvement. We also have the whimsical jumping into animals' POV, which I don't love, although I did like farm hand Zach and his affinity with them. On some level, I felt bad for not going along with it, because it's well-meant propaganda, and the shadow of war is there.
Over the weekend, I also reread Princess Charming, so I'll post my thoughts about that soon.
