[What William Mayne's] writing has shown is that stories for children need not drive straight from opening to end; they can shape themselves by a sort of sly oblique process, emerge sideways and even backwards out of dialogue and hints. In fact, all his stories have strong narrative spines; but they are not rigid ones. He has also come so close to the true nature of children's talk and to the way they feel and think that it must be more difficult than it was for a writer of any sensitiveness to reproduce that blunt form of dialogue, always obviously to the purpose, and that falsely consequent rendering of patterns of young thought and feeling, that are conventions of writing for children. In a sense, Mr Mayne has reminded us of the precise nature of children. (p. 79)
William Mayne's stories are full of … pure true comedy of talk among children, of talk between children and adults (the adults sometimes exasperated or bemused by it, or without the leisure that enables the child to give it full attention; though the old, as they are often portrayed in William Mayne's stories, are seen to have re-acquired their sense of the intricate meanings of language). And, apart from his purely comic concern with words, William Mayne understands beautifully that language is itself part of the adventure of being alive and that, by misleading or puzzling or illuminating, it can inspire or direct events.
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