The Thursday Kidnapping

by Antonia Forest

On a day of misadventure, the baby of the Ramsay family suddenly disappears...

Genres: Childrens, Fiction

218 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Antonia Forest was the pen name of Patricia Giulia Caulfield Kate Rubinstein. She was born in North London, the child of Russian-Jewish and Irish parents. She studied at South Hampstead High School and University College, London, and worked as a government clerk and a librarian. Best known for her series of novels about the Marlow family, she published her first book, Autumn Term, in 1948.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

THANKS FOR SPOILERIZING THE ENTIRE STORY ON THE FIRST PAGE, COWARD-MCANN!
Asshats.

***

Whoa. This was way darker than I expected. Especially after the first-page spoiler, which makes everything sound all harmless.

At first I just felt a little down about Ellen, the oldest child who has a crazy shitload of work and responsibility dumped onto her, basically non-stop. She gets up before dawn to do a paper route, makes breakfast for everyone (different individual breakfasts, because her family members are all too special to eat the same thing), cleans, takes care of all her siblings and the neighbor baby, gets the groceries, makes lunch, bathes the kids, makes tea... I don't know how this girl doesn't flunk out of school. But she seems pretty cheerful, and Forest seems to mean for us to like the parents, so fine, judgement suspended. But I'm lying about that, because really I did think they were pretty neglectful and irresponsible, and they don't even listen to their kids. But at least the family is affectionate.

But that's not the main point. Bart, the neighbor baby, is stolen while the kids are in the library. And it isn't funny. Even though the reader knows the baby is safe, and there is some humor in the prose, the kids are obviously frightened and upset and panicked (except for Bobbin, who is frankly a brat and only likeable at all in comparison to the psycho neighbor girl Kathy). Their miles and hours of rushing around town trying to find the baby are emotionally exhausting. Lost dogs and car crashes are not amusing, either. I felt awful for Ellen and Neil, trying to cope with responsibility and distress unsupported. I even felt sad for Kathy, although I loathed her.

This really wasn't what I expected. I haven't read Forest before but had the impression that her stories were more wholesome and old-fashioned. I do think she is very good at character-writing, however -- everyone felt real to me. Even some secondary characters who only have a few pages are really solid, like the rather depressing but too annoying to be pitiable old neighbor woman whom everyone wants to avoid because she won't shut up with her unsolicited advice and bossiness, but who deludedly believes she is good with people and children love her, or the nameless people in the store with their assorted reactions to Kathy's shoplifting. Jamie, the younger sister, wants to be a cowboy but has uncontrollable crying fits. Steadfast Ellen was almost too good to be true -- she's pretty much the perfect daughter and sister -- but Forest resists simplification and stock characters admirably. I'm definitely willing to give her another try.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covering one day—a Thursday, naturally—in the life of the four Ramsay children, this British children's novel from 1963 follows Ellen (AKA Len), Neil, Jamie and Bobbin as they set out to do the family shopping, with baby Bart—the child of Freddie and Marika, the Hungarian couple who also live in their house—in tow. A crisis ensues when said baby, left in his pram outside of the library by the impatient and careless Jamie, who was meant to be watching him, is taken by the Ramsays' neighbor, Kathy Fisher. What follows is a day of terrible panic, frantic searches, and extreme emotional distress for the four siblings, until finally the truth is revealed, and they go to confront Kathy...

I am not entirely sure why, but it has taken me quite a long while to read this book. It has been on my "currently reading" shelf since September 2021, and I have picked it up, started it, and then put it down, countless times. It's not that the book held no interest—the opening, in which we meet Ellen, and then Kathy and the Ramsay family are introduced, is engaging enough—but somehow I could never seem to proceed beyond the first few chapters. In any case, now that I have finally read it, I can say that it is not the equal of Antonio Forest's other books, but is still fairly engrossing. Forest does a good job capturing the emotional turmoil of her characters, who (unlike the reader) have no idea that Bart is mostly safe in Kathy's keeping. Kathy herself is quite the character. I'm not sure if we're meant to feel badly for her—Ellen clearly does, at some points—but she struck me as seriously damaged, psychologically speaking. Perhaps even psychopathic, from the way Forest described her thinking. The almost cold-blooded way she approached people, calculating how to make them like her, and then becoming enraged when they didn't, was very disturbing to read. I don't think this was intentional on the author's part, as I think she meant for the reader to think the character's flaws were owing to her unfortunate family life, but I came away with the impression of a very disturbed person.

In any case, leaving Kathy aside, I ended up enjoying The Thursday Kidnapping well enough, and am glad to have finally read it, as it was the last of Antonia Forest's thirteen children's novels I had yet to read. That said, I am not sure that I strongly recommend it, save to those who are fans of the author, and are (like me) completists.

[Gretchen Rubin]

This work of children's literature takes place in one day and is intensely stressful, but interesting.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I avoided this book for years, because it's not about the Marlows. And what a prize idiot this makes me. There aren't enough stars or superlatives for it. The action covers a single day, in a fairly confined location, and I'm astonished it didn't win whatever competition AF wrote it for. At times laugh out loud funny, it's also poignant, and afterwards I kept thinking back to Kathy. I still can't make up my mind about her. Go and read it, and decide for yourself. Just don't put it off for 40 years like I did.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rare children's book (ETA: not quite as rare now that Girls Gone By have reprinted it) by the marvelous Antonia Forest, whose Marlow family series I've finally got all of. This isn't a Marlow book (one of the few she wrote which isn't); instead it deals with the Ramsay children, who live in London with their father and mother in a house shared with Hungarian refugees Freddy, Marika, and their small son Bart. One day, when the Ramsays go out with Bart, he's kidnapped.

Since the reader knows early on what has happened to Bart, there's little suspense on that front; the interest is in watching the Ramsays figure it out. As always, Forest's characters, particularly the children, are perceptively drawn, and their relationships are interesting, yet the loss of suspense to the reader in knowing the solution to the mystery makes for a pedestrian plot, which for me wasn't quite overcome by the interest of the characters. Still, Forest's books are so few and difficult to come by that I'm glad to have this one to add to my collection.

[Zen Cho · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am jealous of everyone who has managed to get and read copies of Antonia Forest's out of print books and so are able to review them on GR! I thoroughly enjoyed this and would have liked it a lot as a kid, though I guess it is a bit slow. (The whole book is about one day.) The character Kathy is excellent -- Gwendolyn Lacey, only with psychological complexity. Ellen is like the tender, responsible, wise eldest sisters of Edith Nesbit's books, and I loved Jamie (? do I remember her name correctly? the other girl) as well.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nerve-wracking book. Perhaps not as scary to a child in 1963 when it first came out. As an adult these days I found it very unsettling. Good characters, very real, quite the page turner. Each chapter ends with a cliff-hanger. Hard to put down.

[Pheasant Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so excited to discover there was an Antonia Forest I hadn’t read and then it was a bit of a let down. The story was so frustrating and not particularly interesting. That said, by the end, the characters had been extremely well developed and annoying as I found Bobbin, he did give me a bit of an insight into how I think one of my own children often feels. Antonia Forest is extraordinary good at understanding children’s feelings and I am amazed how much she must have retained of her own childhood.

[Dorrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written with an astute and authentic portrayal of family dynamics and full of wit and humour. This is a story with a great deal of depth, and the section where the children witness the dysfunctional relationships within Kathy's family is moving and poignant. I also think that the complexities of Kathy are articulated perfectly and although she is not an immensely likeable character, she is definitely memorable. A gem of a book by Antonia Forest. Wonderful.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one wasn't actually reviewed on Fantasy Bookswap, but I couldn't get the Forest school story they used. This one was reminiscent of Streatfeild -- sharp eye for how children of various ages think, how siblings interact, how families work. It's a terrible horrible no good day for most of the book, but well worth it to read.

[Sharon Buxton · Rating 2 out of 5]

D. fiction, YA, British, from stash, discard

[June Schwarz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a patch on the Marlow books.