I WENT Into a secondhand bookstore to get my mother a magazine of pictures showing the lovely frocks of actors attending a recent ball, but left it with a book about a barn of old, useless animals.
I was sidetracked by this personage encountered on the first page: “He was the color of old metal, broad-faced with thick whiskers and dark lines that ran from his nose to his forehead and down his back and sides. His coat was rumpled and slack, for all he was big. His paws were black, his tail was thick and ringed with black circles. It swelled out at the end like a fox’s brush. When he stood or sat, he rocked slightly from side to side like a punch-drunk fighter. He was stiff and walked low to the ground. His left ear hung down like a loose flap. He wasn’t old, but he looked beaten up.”
So I met Whittington, Alan Armstrong’s protagonist in the eponymous novel for young readers.
A “book for kids” is a misleading genre. True, there is a barn full of animals, all outtalking the humans.
From the standpoint of animals, a farm is hell on earth. One’s place in a barn is secured by the usefulness of either one’s existence or death: a horse must work and fowls mean either eggs or meat.
When two old racehorses are about to be sold as horsemeat, Bernie converted a tobacco shed that no longer held tobacco so he could keep the horses because he “just liked (horses).”
So the shed becomes a sanctuary for Blackie, a lame hen who froze in the snow; Havey, a stray who turns out to be a “biter;” Whittington, thrown out by the parents of his master when he goes away to college; and other written-off pets.
Too many people like pets when they are novel and cute; for the pet, though, the connection is for life. As Aramis, the old gelding, explains to Whittington, “We’re helping Bernie raise his grandkids.”
The grandson Ben, a non-reader, is helped by his sister Abby every day at the barn. Lady, the barn matriarch, privately thinks ducks and other animals “had gotten along without reading,” but still organizes all the animals to support the children during the long, anxious reading lessons.
Rewarding Ben and Abby are the storytelling breaks by Whittington. This fanged and furred Scheherazade narrates how his nameless ancestor improves the fortunes of Dick Whittington, whose legendary struggles inspire Ben not to give up despite the bullying in school.
In “The Arabian Nights,” Scheherazade saves her life by telling stories. In “Whittington,” the redemptive power of stories starts with but goes beyond reading.
When Lady falls sick, Ben revives her with a story about herself: “Ben told about her encouraging his reading. ‘She taught me about taking charge of myself’.”