It’s
the school holidays, and Mummy wants to take Sophie and Emma on an adventure. Sophie
and Emma view the idea with deep suspicion. They’ve been on Mummy’s ‘adventures’
before. It’s true that the hotel they’re staying in used to be a castle, but
that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be fun – what if it smells?
This is an updated version of the novel of this title by E. Nesbit. The original Enchanted Castle is about three children (plus their new princess friend), but the personalised version has only two. This works really well, as it gives both children a big role to play in the story (the original is dominated by Gerald, and although I really like him as a character, you don’t get boys like him nowadays).
The updated version of the story is
quite a rigorous rewrite. Children’s lives have changed a lot in the
last hundred years, and the personalised book reflects that. In the original, Gerald,
Kathleen and Jimmy are forced to spend the school holidays at Kathleen’s
boarding school where they are looked after by the French mistress. Not really
the kind of thing that happens nowadays, but rewriting it as a holiday with
Mummy works really well.
I do love the original book, but it is true
that I don’t identify with Gerald, Kathleen or Jimmy in quite the same way as I
do with Sophie and Emma. Emma is really lovely and I like to think I’m not too
horrendous, but we wouldn’t behave like Gerald in the original. We’d probably
be in trouble if we did! What seemed like charming behaviour in E. Nesbit’s
time would not always be appreciated now. (I noticed something similar in the
personalised Sense & Sensibility -
Marianne’s ‘rudeness’ would hardly seem rude at all today, while Elinor’s
‘politeness’ would probably be taken as sarcasm, and cause great offence.)
I haven’t checked both versions of The Enchanted Castle in detail, but it
seems as though almost every sentence has been rewritten. However, it does tell
the same story. Although the personalised version is much shorter, surprisingly
little is left out. The Ugly-Wuglies’ section is missing, but the story works just
as well without them.
In some ways, I enjoyed this version more
than the original. Virginia D. Gray’s descriptions aren’t as beautiful as E.
Nesbit’s, but if they were, the book would have been a lot longer, and probably
a lot less accessible for younger readers longer (I first read E. Nesbit when I was six, but although I loved Five Children and It, The Last of the Dragons and The Railway Children, I found The Enchanted Castle a bit slow). But the
minimal descriptions make the book fast paced and exciting, the story works
well when set in the present day, and I really loved the magical side.
If you’re personalising the story, it would
be easier if you didn’t call a character Maybelle, as this is the name of the
princess. Two characters with the same name are very confusing, as I found when
I personalised Sense & Sensibility.
Like most personalised stories, The Enchanted Castle has an animal character – a pet cat or dog. I have never had a pet cat or dog and wouldn’t
want either, though I always choose the cat in BookByYou. At least they don’t
stick their head somewhere private and put their sharp claws on your nice new
leopardskin tights. But I have found a couple of ways around the cat/dog
situation. I named this particular cat after a rather energetic and inquisitive
toddler I know, and it really did work brilliantly.
