[Philippa Pearce's] achievement, wonderful enough in itself, is representative of how (without forsaking the adult note) a truly gifted writer can now write directly for the child, and for the ordinary child, in a way seldom achieved before….

[Minnow on the Say] has the hypnotic craftsmanship of a first class detective story. And as the story winds its fascinating course, the book engages the reader even more deeply in the lovely recreation of a boy's life in a small East Anglian village. In doing so, it brings back many childhoods…. It spills over with a child's geography, places that only a child would know…. (p. 196)

It is, if you like, a very conservative book. Children are expected to be polite to adults, to make things—scraping and varnishing their canoe—not to destroy. There are all the tiny ceremonies of inviting friends to tea, or calling on strangers...