On the Wasteland

by Ruth M. Arthur

A young orphan discovers a dream world which allows her to escape the unpleasant realities of everyday life in the orphanage, but her intense attachment to fantasy almost ends in disaster.

Genres: Fiction, Time Travel, Fantasy, Childrens, Young Adult

159 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Working name of UK writer Ruth Mabel Arthur Huggins, long active as a children's author, her career beginning with Friendly Stories (collection, 1932). Most of her early work, like the Brownie sequence -- The Crooked Brownie (1936), The Crooked Brownie in Town (1942) and The Crooked Brownie at the Seaside (1942) -- is for younger children, but with Dragon Summer (1962) and A Candle in her Room (1966) she began to write the haunting fantasy-tinged adolescent novels for which she became best known. Often featuring first-person narratives spanning multiple generations filled with echoes of centuries past.

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Betony Alison Craig, an orphan living at the Brackenbury Children's Home in Suffolk, keeps her loneliness in check and the world at bay by withdrawing further and further into a world of fantasy and dreams in this later Ruth M. Arthur title. Betony's feelings of recognition when she first sees the Wasteland - a desolate territory by the salt marshes - her sense of connection to the land and its history, create a place of refuge to which she withdraws at every opportunity. As Betony begins to witness ghostly echoes of the past, first seeing a Viking long-ship, then hearing the actual voices of those long-ago invaders, she becomes more and more enmeshed in the past...

In On the Wasteland, Arthur delivers an interesting variation on her usual theme of a heroine whose entanglement with the past allows her to grapple with her present-day problems, in that she seems to be putting forward the idea that too deep a connection to the past can be more dangerous than helpful. The story has a neat symmetry to it, with the echoes of the past saving Betony from her early isolation and her growing friendships saving her from the past. As is the case with so many of Arthur's novels for girls, the accompanying artwork by the talented Margarey Gill is immensely appealing, with a magical quality that suits the story perfectly.

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy this author's style of writing and subject matter, it's not without it's faults but it has a special quality and I know I would have loved it all the more if I had read it in my teens.

Betony's father dissapeared before she could remember and she is soon to be orphaned. Travelling in a gypsy caravan with her alcoholic step dad she has a horrible time made bearable only by her beloved dog. Betony comes to live in an orphanage where the bulk of the story happens.

The story follows Betony's life, how she finds it hard to trust and make friends and how she has 'dreams' that could be seen as time slip or could be seen as Betony's longing to have family relationships that she has never experienced. This story is set in Suffolk where I live and has a sub plot of a time slip into the days when vikings settled here. I would love to know where exactly the author had in mind for the setting of this story.

There are some lovely characters in this book, Betony herself, reserved and clever, Yetty, a local suffolk 'gal' who lives in a upturned boat house, Orlando, who is leader of a gang, Linney, who will one day inherit the manor and salt marsh.

I enjoyed the main story so much, I felt the time slip part seemed unneeded, there didn't seem to be enough about this part of Betony's life/imagination. We would have loved more detail about this viking life, more descriptions and day to day happenings to make this part come alive for us. We enjoyed hearing the use of some suffolk dialect but beyond saying 'my mawther' and one use of 'bor' there was little else. A bit of research on this could have made this more realistic. There was a slight romantic element to it that was unrealistic and fairytale like.

I did really enjoy this story, I read it aloud to my daughter, we usually agree completely on book ratings but she didn't enjoy this one, she found it boring in places and would rate it 3 stars.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 and a half stars rounded up....Arthur does not click for me quite as much as I think she should, perhaps because her 1st person characters are often very conscious of telling you the story. In this case, the girl narrator keeps referring to her journals as an aid to keeping her story chronologically accurate, which makes it hard to be immersed in the actual story right along with her. Pity, because it's a very good story! (Time travel to a Viking settlement in Sussex)

update--liked it slightly more the second time around (possibly because my expectations were lower)

[Sharon Buxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A-. children's book, historical fiction, middle grades, Great Britain, Vikings, fantasy, mom's stash, keep

[Linda Hanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Ruth M Arthur books in junior high. I've searched to find many of her books. This one shows that she has great vision, but doesn't always execute well. The many storylines were fragmented and cobbled together.