The Ivory Anvil

by Sylvia Fair

Sioned discovers a piece is missing from the intricate Chinese puzzle entrusted to her by the ancient Dinah China. Sioned is driven to find the missing piece, and solve the mystery of the puzzle.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1974

Reviews

[Capn · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was lost. One minute piece of an intricate Chinese puzzle, delicately carved out of ivory in the shape of a tiny anvil - lost on a Welsh mountain . . .
To Anna this was final: to search for the missing piece would be folly. But to Sioned, guided by impulses too strange and too strong to ignore, the search was as inevitable as life and death. Had not the puzzle been entrusted to her by Dinah China, who with her sister kept the old china shop in the small town of Nantyglyn? They were an ancient pair, the Meredith sisters, incompatible as oil and water, folk said, and many were the secrets guarded behind their dark and cobwebby doors. They alone knew the power of the Chinese puzzle and the fate of the lost piece. They had lived in the Drowned House and they were haunted by the memory of the mysterious Lizzie Meredith.
For Sioned and Anna this was a summer they would remember all their lives: together, in the beautiful Welsh valley that was their home, they had lived through the strangest piece of history, and together they had formed a friendship more to be prized than the rarest ivory.
This is Sylvia Fair's first novel for children.

I have an embarrassingly large amount of reading material to get through this year (and probably the next 5 to 6, if I don't pick up the pace..), and it's hard to know where to start. Almost as hard as not browsing the Oxfam Bookshop's shelves daily...

I've picked up this one, now, because I read a spoiler yesterday and figured I might as well just get it over with. The thing about reading vintage juvenile fiction is that you feel somewhat immune to accidental spoilers online - no one's talking about this book from 1974! - and yet, here we are. Now that I've added the inside flap summary above, though, I suppose it's pretty spoilerish itself anyway (typically why I don't read them ahead of time).

I liked this, quite a lot. It's a lot like The House at Spaniard's Bay in the sense that it's set in a Celtic land (this one Wales, the other N. Ireland), in roughly the same era, with almost exclusively female characters of varying ages; the young lead is a talented artist with aspirations to go further with her art (in this case, sketching to sculpture; in the other, becoming a 'modern art' painter and defying the classical school of her aunt), and lots and lots of summertime freedom in the wild countryside with adventures on bikes. Also - female authors.

Sioned (Shon-ned; Welsh v. of "Janet") grew up in this village, and knows everyone from Doubting Thomas and his invisible flock of sheep, Eva and Dinah China, Gwenny the Chip Shop (and her "ambitiously christened" son, Samson), drunk Mr. Harris-back-in-twenty-minutes, Winnie the Wash, and of course all the snot-nosed boys who are, to the eyes of Sioned's new-to-town friend Anna, now good-looking teens on motorbikes. She has a passion for art and a secret wish to be a sculpter, and also a love of the Welsh language, now functionally dead and gone in Nantyglyn. She had to teach it to herself, laboriously, and from books. No one in the village could (or would) speak to her in it. So Anna, newcomer, causes some resentment to bubble up in Sioned - can Anna ever see Wales and Nantyglyn as she does? Is the Wales she loves truly gone?

Meanwhile, we have the ivory puzzle, some mystery, and some Penelope Lively-esque low fantasy supernatural influences. Apart from the aforementioned Meta Mayne Reid, I was also reminded of the writing style of Rodie Sudbery, who I'd like to read more from.

A well-written, captivating read about some very old Welsh spinsters with a trunk full of Chinese treasures stashed under the dining table, and an intuitive young Welsh girl chosen to complete a shadowy narrative begun nearly a century before.

Books akin to this (incl. those mentioned above, for convenience):
The House at Spaniard's Bay by Meta Mayne Reid
Astercote by Penelope Lively (most of her books, really!)
The Silk and the Skin by Rodie Sudbery (just reminded me of her writing style - content doesn't overlap much)
(I'll add others if I think of them)

I'll be on the lookout for Fair's The penny tin whistler now.

Plug for our Goodreads group: if you like vintage juvenile fiction, why not join (or start) a discussion at Forgotten Vintage Children's Lit We Want Republished!?! :) It doesn't have to necessarily be 'forgotten', and this year (2024) we're featuring Joan Aiken's works (some of which are still in print!). A friendly place to browse, or to ask questions on procurement (and retention - I myself am always looking for storage tips!), to find information on lesser known authors, etc. Or to just wax poetic on your favourite sub-genres or writers.

[David Ivester · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange and wonderful book. A story about Welsh pride. about an old mystery, and about change in the midst of tradition. I gave it five stars because I liked it. That's all I can say; I liked it.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a vague memory of reading this book as a child in the mid 1970s. I couldn't recall any details other than an old ivory puzzle, a lost piece and a reservoir low water level in a summer drought. After a bit of searching on the Internet and going down a few blind allies, my patience was rewarded when the cover of The Ivory Anvil popped onto the screen and everything started to fall into place (pun intended). It wasn't available on Kindle but a quick hunt on eBay and I located a copy. The wonders of the Internet!
It's only a very short novel and obviously written for young readers, but it's a delightful story that I really enjoyed revisiting 50 years after first encountering it probably thanks to the Puffin Club.