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Emily
Emily the Traveling Guinea Pig
Story of a well-bred, resourceful guinea pig with a penchant for traveling. Book includes eight color plates and many black & white drawings throughout.
- GenresChildrens
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
Emma Smith
37 books8 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
EMMA SMITH was born in Cornwall in 1923 and was privately educated. In 1939 she took her first job in the Records Department of the War Office before volunteering for work on the canals; this gave her the material for Maidens' Trip (1948), which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. She spent the winter of 1946-7 with a documentary film unit in India and then lived in Paris and wrote The Far Cry (1949), awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the best novel of the year in English. In 1951 Emma Smith married and had two children. After her husband's death in 1957 she went to live in rural Wales; she then published very successful children's books, short stories (one of which was runner-up in the 1951 Observer short story competition that launched the winner, Muriel Spark, on her career) and, in 1978, her novel The Opportunity of a Lifetime. Since 1980 she has lived in Putney in south-west London.
Note: Information taken from Persephone Press site: http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/page...
EMMA SMITH was born in Cornwall in 1923 and was privately educated. In 1939 she took her first job in the Records Department of the War Office before volunteering for work on the canals; this gave her the material for Maidens' Trip (1948), which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. She spent the winter of 1946-7 with a documentary film unit in India and then lived in Paris and wrote The Far Cry (1949), awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the best novel of the year in English. In 1951 Emma Smith married and had two children. After her husband's death in 1957 she went to live in rural Wales; she then published very successful children's books, short stories (one of which was runner-up in the 1951 Observer short story competition that launched the winner, Muriel Spark, on her career) and, in 1978, her novel The Opportunity of a Lifetime. Since 1980 she has lived in Putney in south-west London.
Note: Information taken from Persephone Press site: http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/page...
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 24, 2023
This was a childhood fave of mine. Sometimes I wonder to what extent it influenced me and to what extent my "Aunty Valerie" was just a prophetic witch in picking a character I'd relate to even if she didn't share my name.
You see, as the title suggests, Emily the guinea pig has an adventurous streak and loves to travel (in this case, she wants to find the sea)...but you couldn't really call her "spontaneous". No, she is a sturdy, conscientious creature, who really likes being prepared for things. She must have gotten her bag from Mary Poppins, given all the useful items she carefully stashed in it, from a tea kettle and biscuits, to a hammock, to a ball of string that proves quite useful in her (first) rescue of her travel-friend the weasel.
Is it weird to ship a guinea pig and a weasel? I feel like I probably always did, given that his response of "I'm not the staying kind" to Emily and her brother's offer to have him stay with them at the end consistently broke my heart. And certainly he seems to take pleasure in being enigmatic, given that he never even gives his name! But if a sequel had ever been written, I'm sure he would have been in it. Emily and the weasel are kind of like mirror images of one another. She's domestic and proper but likes an adventure; he's a slightly scruffy rolling stone who is surprisingly skilled at the domestic. Throughout the book he disappears and reappears, as if he's a planet in an elliptical orbit around a round, furry sun. He steals a wheelbarrow to help her carry her bag and builds her a little beach house out of sand; She beats off a crowd of water rats with her umbrella who stole the weasel's hat and are pissed that he stole their wheelbarrow in retaliation... XD
Heck, the weasel even helps out Arthur. Emily takes a probably-unhelpful motherly attitude toward her brother, who is a rather lazy fellow except where gardening is concerned. As soon as she leaves, he's staying in bed all day and piling up dishes in the sink. He is soon joined by his equally slothful friend Gregory the mole, and the duo becomes a trio with addition of a mouse lured out by the sandwiches the pair leave on plates on the bedroom floor so as to have breakfast in bed. When the weasel pops on ahead he finds the mouse dancing a hornpipe while the other two clap so hard they spill cocoa all over the floor:
"The weasel dropped Emily's bag. He might as well have fired a gun...In the silence that followed the weasel hitched his belt, and nodded, and rocked on his heels. 'How do you do?' he said pleasantly. 'You must be Arthur. Well, I've got some real nice news for you. Your sister's just behind me. I take it you're not expecting her?'"
The ink sketches and occasional color plates of these characters - plus others like the hedgehog peddler with his goose-drawn wagon, or the elderly badger astronomer - are a charming addition to the story and often add greatly to the humor.
I will note that at times Emily's lines get a tad, um, "Rule Britannia". But hearing a plump little guinea pig exuding that particular type of upper-crust British self-confidence is pretty funny in itself! Also, the land ownership debate with the water-rats (despite Emily's insistence that it can't be private property without a fence or a sign uncomfortably resembling Eddie Izzard's "do you have a flag?" sketch about colonialism) is probably MEANT to reflect British "right to roam", where quite a lot of areas can't be blocked to travelers even if they DO cross private property: https://www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-...
Unfortunately, this book seems to have been out of print since before I was born...but evidently enough were originally printed that vintage copies can be obtained without breaking the bank. I'll be hanging onto mine for the time being, though!
"'So this is the sea,' said Emily. And she stood there, shading her eyes against the dazzle, and looked and looked and looked. 'Big, ain't it?' said the weasel. Emily turned, and found him standing just behind her... 'It's just what I thought it was going to be like...only more so, in every way. Have you seen it before?' she asked him... 'Seen it and seen it. And been on it too.'... 'How far does it go?' ... The weasel sat down and crossed his ankles, and started to chew a piece of grass. 'It goes on and on,' he told her softly...'It doesn't come to any regular sort of end. Of course there's places that get in the way, but you can go round 'em and on, if you want to, as long as you want to. Forever.' 'I should like to sail away across it one day,' said Emily. 'One day I shall.'"
You see, as the title suggests, Emily the guinea pig has an adventurous streak and loves to travel (in this case, she wants to find the sea)...but you couldn't really call her "spontaneous". No, she is a sturdy, conscientious creature, who really likes being prepared for things. She must have gotten her bag from Mary Poppins, given all the useful items she carefully stashed in it, from a tea kettle and biscuits, to a hammock, to a ball of string that proves quite useful in her (first) rescue of her travel-friend the weasel.
Is it weird to ship a guinea pig and a weasel? I feel like I probably always did, given that his response of "I'm not the staying kind" to Emily and her brother's offer to have him stay with them at the end consistently broke my heart. And certainly he seems to take pleasure in being enigmatic, given that he never even gives his name! But if a sequel had ever been written, I'm sure he would have been in it. Emily and the weasel are kind of like mirror images of one another. She's domestic and proper but likes an adventure; he's a slightly scruffy rolling stone who is surprisingly skilled at the domestic. Throughout the book he disappears and reappears, as if he's a planet in an elliptical orbit around a round, furry sun. He steals a wheelbarrow to help her carry her bag and builds her a little beach house out of sand; She beats off a crowd of water rats with her umbrella who stole the weasel's hat and are pissed that he stole their wheelbarrow in retaliation... XD
Heck, the weasel even helps out Arthur. Emily takes a probably-unhelpful motherly attitude toward her brother, who is a rather lazy fellow except where gardening is concerned. As soon as she leaves, he's staying in bed all day and piling up dishes in the sink. He is soon joined by his equally slothful friend Gregory the mole, and the duo becomes a trio with addition of a mouse lured out by the sandwiches the pair leave on plates on the bedroom floor so as to have breakfast in bed. When the weasel pops on ahead he finds the mouse dancing a hornpipe while the other two clap so hard they spill cocoa all over the floor:
"The weasel dropped Emily's bag. He might as well have fired a gun...In the silence that followed the weasel hitched his belt, and nodded, and rocked on his heels. 'How do you do?' he said pleasantly. 'You must be Arthur. Well, I've got some real nice news for you. Your sister's just behind me. I take it you're not expecting her?'"
The ink sketches and occasional color plates of these characters - plus others like the hedgehog peddler with his goose-drawn wagon, or the elderly badger astronomer - are a charming addition to the story and often add greatly to the humor.
I will note that at times Emily's lines get a tad, um, "Rule Britannia". But hearing a plump little guinea pig exuding that particular type of upper-crust British self-confidence is pretty funny in itself! Also, the land ownership debate with the water-rats (despite Emily's insistence that it can't be private property without a fence or a sign uncomfortably resembling Eddie Izzard's "do you have a flag?" sketch about colonialism) is probably MEANT to reflect British "right to roam", where quite a lot of areas can't be blocked to travelers even if they DO cross private property: https://www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-...
Unfortunately, this book seems to have been out of print since before I was born...but evidently enough were originally printed that vintage copies can be obtained without breaking the bank. I'll be hanging onto mine for the time being, though!
"'So this is the sea,' said Emily. And she stood there, shading her eyes against the dazzle, and looked and looked and looked. 'Big, ain't it?' said the weasel. Emily turned, and found him standing just behind her... 'It's just what I thought it was going to be like...only more so, in every way. Have you seen it before?' she asked him... 'Seen it and seen it. And been on it too.'... 'How far does it go?' ... The weasel sat down and crossed his ankles, and started to chew a piece of grass. 'It goes on and on,' he told her softly...'It doesn't come to any regular sort of end. Of course there's places that get in the way, but you can go round 'em and on, if you want to, as long as you want to. Forever.' 'I should like to sail away across it one day,' said Emily. 'One day I shall.'"
September 12, 2008
Thought I would add some of my favorite kid's books. Maybe this was my all time favorite.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews