The Little Bookroom is a collection of twenty-seven stories by Eleanor Farjeon

Eleanor Farjeon

Eleanor Farjeon was an English author of children's stories and plays, poetry, biography, history and satire. Many of her works had charming illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. Some of her correspondence has also been published...

, most in the fairy tale style, chosen by the author to represent the best of her work over the previous thirty years. The collection was first published in 1955, and led to the author being awarded the Carnegie Medal

Carnegie Medal

The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...

 for that year and the first Hans Christian Andersen International Medal

Hans Christian Andersen Award

The Hans Christian Andersen Award, sometimes known as the "Nobel Prize for children's literature", is an international award given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature"...

. The book is illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

Edward Ardizzone

Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, CBE, RA was an English artist, writer and illustrator, chiefly of children's books.-Early life:...

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The title

At the beginning of the book, Eleanor Farjeon explains that one of the rooms in the house of her childhood was called "The Little Bookroom". Although there were many books all over the house, this dusty room was like an untended garden, full to the ceiling of stray, left-over books, opening "magic casements" on to other times and places for the young Eleanor, filling her mind with a silver-cobwebby mixture of fact, fancy and romance which influenced all her later writing. "Seven maids with seven brooms, sweeping for half-a-hundred years, have never managed to clear my mind of its dust of vanished temples and flowers and kings, the curls of ladies, the sighing of poets, the laughter of lads and girls".

The stories

• The King and the Corn
• The King's Daughter Cries for the Moon
• Young Kate
• The Flower Without a Name
• The Goldfish
• The Clumber Pup
• The Miracle of the Poor Island
• The Girl Who Kissed the Peach-Tree
• Westwoods
• The Barrel-Organ
• The Giant and the Mite
• The Little Dressmaker
• The Lady's Room
• The Seventh Princess
• Leaving Paradise
• The Little Lady's Roses
• In Those Days
• The Connemara Donkey
• The Tims
• Pennyworth
• And I Dance Mine Own Child
• The Lovebirds
• San Fairy Ann
• The Glass Peacock
• The Kind Farmer
• Old Surly and the Boy
• Pannychis

Literary significance and reception

In England the best work of the years after the First World War was mainly in poetry, or fantasy, or poetic fantasy; in particular there was a spate of original stories in the folk-tale manner. Eleanor Farjeon was above all a poet, but from the 1920s onward she effectively used poetic language and fancy in creating literary but homely fairy tales for children, as did her fellow poet, Walter de la Mare. In this, she was in the tradition of Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...

, which makes it fitting that she was the first recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award

Hans Christian Andersen Award

The Hans Christian Andersen Award, sometimes known as the "Nobel Prize for children's literature", is an international award given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature"...

 in 1956; although the award is made for the body of an author's work rather than one book, the publication of The Little Bookroom provided an impetus for the award. Similarly, the award of the Carnegie Medal for 1955 was considered a recognition of Eleanor Farjeon's contribution to children's literature as a whole, echoing the 1947 award to Walter de la Mare for Collected Stories for Children

Collected Stories for Children

Collected Stories for Children is a collection of seventeen short stories by Walter de la Mare, published in 1947. The book was awarded the Carnegie Medal for 1947, the first collection of stories to win the award, and the first time that previously published material had been considered.-The...

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