Working in the children’s section of a bookshop has made me realise how much children’s reading shapes them and how much power we have as adults to give them the right things to read. Not only am I on a mission to get the children of today to read almost anything other than David Walliams and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I’ve also decided to create ‘Mostly Harmless Recommends’, a collection of books which I think have the potential to teach children to view the planet as a beautiful shared home rather than a human possession.

M.H. Recommends: The Wild Folk, Sylvia V. Linsteadt

It’s hard to believe that this adventure wasn’t written with Climate Change in mind, although the author doesn’t mention it. The beautiful island of Farallone is in danger of being destroyed by human greed for its resources, and we join our protagonists Comfrey and Tin in a race against time to save their home.

About the book

The story is set on the island world of Farallone, which is split between the City, the Country, and the Wild Folk lands of Olima. The City runs on Star Gold, a powerful substance found underground for which Farallone was nearly destroyed some centuries before, only saved when mythical ‘creatrix’ the Elk of Milk and Gold intervened to decimate the human population. Most survivors retreated to the City, protecting themselves with high walls and trying to replenish their dwindling reserves of Stargold by creating more through alchemy, believing the natural reserves to be gone and everything outside the city walls to be wasteland. Outside the City, the natural world has rebuilt itself. The Country Folk are humans who live in harmony with the land, and Olima is populated by Wild Folk, magical part-animal, part human creatures that take care of nature. The Wild Folk hate all humans, the Country Folk are afraid of the Wild Folk, and both groups hate the City.

When it becomes clear that Farallone is in danger of being destroyed for Stargold once again, Country girl Comfrey and City boy Tin (alongside two hares, Myrtle and Mallow) must travel through Olima to find the Elk of Milk and Gold, meeting many different creatures and people and proving themselves to the Wild Folk on the way. At the end of the book (the first of two), we leave Comfrey and Tin at the centre of a crowd made up of humans, Wild Folk, animals and City rebels all coming together to save their home, mending centuries of bad blood.

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What earns The Wild Folk a Mostly Harmless recommendation?

Obvious points first. The entire point of this adventure is for Comfrey and Tin to save the beautiful, abundant island of Farallone from destruction at the hands of the powerful Brothers who run the City and will stop at nothing to get their hands on Stargold – despite its destroying the very world that sustains them. Sound familiar?

The story starts with Tin living as an orphan in the City and Comfrey living in the Country with her mother, and we get to see Farallone from different perspectives. Outside the City walls, Comfrey and her mother live in harmony with the land and respect for nature is central, but their lifestyle is also comfortable and enjoyable. Life as we see it in the City is miserable, grey and relentless, driven by greed and rife with superficiality and exploitation. Tin grew up without knowledge of or access to the natural world. Seeing it for the first time through his eyes is enough to make you re-evaluate your appreciation of the Earth:

“The City Wall was already far behind him. Below was the impossibly vast skin of a grey ocean. To his right stretched the great Salvian Desert, silver in the starlight, and the soft, endless folds of the Salvian Mountains. In front of him the coastline was jagged and huge and fringed with green. The ocean crashed white against it. The sea air filled the Fiddleback, and Tin breathed and breathed the smell until he was dizzy. It felt more like drinking than smelling. Suddenly the boy began to cry, first just a little bit and then in huge, breathless sobs… in all his life, he had never imagined that the world could be so enormous and so beautiful.”

He’s amazed by its beauty, and immediately overwhelmed with a desire to protect it:

“Tin looked around, and the beauty of the place overtook him…You would only ever leave this place to protect it, even if that meant you might die trying to save it. Tin felt, in a small but growing way, like he might understand after all…. Just for this, Tin thought, I might die too. Just for the feeling of aliveness in my lungs. I would die too, rather than let it fall into the hands of the City and become another Wasteland.”

With more and more of us living in cities, many children rarely have the opportunity to play or explore outside. Although information has never been more easily accessible, real opportunities to engage with the world beyond what directly surrounds us are becoming sparser, especially as everyday life becomes less affordable, and the ever-narrowing school curriculum reduces children’s horizons even more. Tin’s wonder at the greenery, pure air and sheer aliveness is tangible, and the contrast of his grimy, dirty, concrete existence in the city to the spacious, air-filled, verdant glory of the Country and Olima throws our lifestyles into harsh perspective. Reading this book as a child would implant the view of nature as something to be admired, respected and co-operated with, and place the idea of humankind dominating it firmly under the heading ‘Bad Ideas’.

Similarly to Watership Down, The Wild Folk is also fantastic at pushing the reader to consider the world from a perspective other than human. The two hares Myrtle and Mallow, who act like familiars to the children, frequently lead the way and provide advice, pointing out that animals live in the world as well as humans and see it in ways we can’t. Through the hares’ stories we learn about the pain inflicted on Farallone and its native inhabitants by the humans and the children are ashamed of their species’ violent past, becoming quietly more determined to prevent it from ever happening again the more they learn. The destruction the humans caused is really driven home towards the final episodes of the book, where the last obstacle the children must overcome is to walk through the ghosts of all the bears that were hunted to extinction by the humans and understand their pain. This episode is less scary than it sounds – no mental scarring here – and the children do make it through, but this image of the lasting wounds inflicted by the greed of humankind makes a strong impression.

The Wild Folk also has the Greta factor: no-one is too small to make a difference. City leaders The Brothers are motivated by personal satisfaction and greed, with no morals, concept of or concern for the bigger picture. Tin is forced by them to spend his days trying to artificially create Stargold, and feeling powerless he makes his rebellion by secretly building a little vehicle shaped like a spider – which accidentally starts something much bigger than he could ever have imagined. Similarly, Comfrey is just one person, but by following her interest in the Wild Folk rather than accepting the common wisdom that they’re dangerous, she creates a connection between them and the humans, mending ancient bad blood. When we leave Farallone at the end of the book Tin, Comfrey, Myrtle and Mallow stand surrounded by a crowd made up of every kind of Wild-Folk, the Holy Fools (a group of outcast humans), the Mycelium (City rebels), and animals, all brought together by a common aim where there had been hatred, division and fear. Neither child set out to do any of this – they just did what they could with the skills they had. It’s even emphasised that it’s their very individuality which makes them powerful. While visiting the Holy Fools, both Comfrey and Tin receive their Oddness (a gift that every visitor is given), a specific item which serves as a physical embodiment of the owner’s particular skill.

“Of course, you were born with it, your Oddness. That’s what makes you you, and not me… It is also your strength, your gift.”

Comfrey receives a pair of glasses which show her how everything is connected because she is especially perceptive; Tin receives a penknife which can make anything because he is an excellent storyteller and inventor. Both Comfrey and Tin use their Oddnesses to overcome obstacles and prove their worth to the Wild Folk : it’s exactly what set them apart that made them powerful, and able to make a difference even on their own.

This gives the Greta message: nobody is too small to achieve something amazing. Sit outside the Swedish parliament for a few Fridays with a sign and spark a global movement inspiring millions. Build a metal spider or follow a Bobcat-girl into the hills, and bring together a mishmash of species to save the world.

The Wild Folk presents the natural world as a treasure and a wonder, and humans who don’t value it as selfish and cruel. The effects of human destruction are highlighted throughout, and above all it’s made clear that the smallest of humans can make the biggest of differences.