| The Scarecrows | |
|---|---|
First US edition |
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| Author(s) | Robert Westall |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Children's literature |
| Publisher | Bodley Head |
| Publication date | 1981 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
The Scarecrows is a children's novel by Robert Westall, published in 1981. The novel was awarded the Carnegie Medal for 1981,[1] the second Carnegie award for Robert Westall. It is a psychological novel with a supernatural twist, dealing with themes of rage, isolation and fear in a plot concerning a thirteen-year-old boy's reaction to his mother's remarriage.
Contents |
The story is a third-person narrative, but the point of view is entirely that of Simon Wood - his thoughts, feelings and memories, the things he sees and experiences, conversations he has, conversations he overhears. The novel opens at Simon's boarding school, where the poisonous atmosphere of bullying and denigration has nurtured Simon's "devils", as he describes his blind rages. It is there that he first sees Joe Moreton, who has given Simon's widowed mother a lift to an event at the school; Simon loathes him at first sight, regarding him as a "yob", unimpressed by his fame as an artist.
He is enraged when he overhears a conversation at an art gallery which makes it clear that Joe and his mother are dating, and when his mother tells him she intends to marry Joe he vainly begs her not to, and refuses to attend the wedding. Eventually he has to join his mother, his sister and Joe at their new home in Cheshire. Both his mother's happiness and his sister's adoration of Joe incense him, as he regards them as betraying his father's memory. The nearby unused water mill, separated from the house by a turnip field, provides a refuge, but it harbours a sinister secret. During the war, the miller was murdered by his wife and her lover.
By his own attitude and actions, Simon becomes increasingly isolated. When he is driven to call on his father's spirit for support, it appears that the call is intercepted by the spirits at the mill, which manifest as scarecrows and imperceptibly advance across the turnip field to threaten the family. Simon's friend Tris la Chard comes to stay, and helps Simon to face up to reality and defeat the spirits.
Present
Past
The Scarecrows was awarded the Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature. The novel has been described as a book "full of anger. Simon... loathes his stepfather and resents his mother's marital happiness; and it is obviously his own fury and malice that brings to life the Scarecrows, grown from clothes left in the nearby ruined water-mill by the participants in a long-past murderous triangle of passion."[2] The effectiveness of the horror aspect of the story is emphasized in Reading for Enjoyment, in which it is described as a "book to make the hairs rise on the back of your neck".[3]
In 2001 The Scarecrows was included in a list of recommended books for teenage boys in The Guardian newspaper, where it was described as an "intelligent and menacing" novel.[4]
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by City of Gold |
Carnegie Medal recipient 1981 |
Succeeded by The Haunting |