Book Review: Peacock Pie

Book Review: Peacock Pie

Author: Walter de la Mare

Date: 1913, 1975

Publisher: Unwin (U.K.), Faber & Faber (U.S.)

ISBN: 0-571-04683-5

Length: 115 pages

Illustrations: drawings by Edward Ardizzone

Quote: “Slowly, silently, now the moon / Walks the night in her silver shoon...”

The publication data for this book says a lot about its success. According to my 1975 copy, Peacock Pie was “First published 1913...Edition illustrated by W. Hearth Robinson, first published 1916. Edition illsutrated by C. Lovat Fraser, first published 1924...Edition illustrated by Jocelyn Crowe, first published 1936. Edition illustrated by F.R. Emett, first published in September 1941...This edition, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, first published 1946...”

Poems that were very effective for child audiences a hundred years ago aren’t always equally effective now, though many of the poems are deliciously spooky. Some of the poems in Peacock Pie are real classics, like the silver moonlight landscape quoted above. Some need just a little explanation...

                A poor old Widow in her weeds

                Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds...

                And now all summer she sits and sews

                Where willow-herb, comfrey, and bugloss blows...

Some are vocabulary challenges for most picture-book readers:

                The sandy cat by the Farmer’s chair

                Mews at his knee for dainty fare...

                Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:

                Gone is another summer’s day.

Some describe things today’s children aren’t forced to know about:

                Poor blind Tam, the beggar man,

                I’ll give a penny to as soon as I can.

Some merely hint at things nostalgia buffs prefer to forget. “Poor tired Tim! It’s sad for him” sounds like a taunt to be recited when a normal healthy child is feeling sleepy or sluggish, as it might be from staying up too late...but the drawing shows that Edward Ardizzone visualized the chronically tired child as starving.

De la Mare meant these poems to appeal to imagination. They will, if children understand them at all. They will definitely entice children into a different sort of world. However, it’s possible that Peacock Pie would be better appreciated as a nostalgic gift to an adult than as a picture book for a beginning reader. Children are most likely to appreciate this book if adults read the poems to them.