Thursday's Children

Thursday's child has far to go says the nursery rhyme, and never was the saying more apt than it was for Doone Penny, sixth and youngest child of a London greengrocer. In this fine and involving novel Rumer Godden writes of Doone's determination against all odds to become a ballet dancer—a magical tale of fire and spirit.

Doone's difficulties begin at home, for it is actually his pretty, talented, and spoiled sister, Crystal, on whom Ma, a onetime chorus girl, has set all her hopes and dreams of ballet glory, and on whom lessons are lavished by this family of very modest means. When Doone at the age of eight carries Crystal's shoes to her class and first hears, sees, and accidentally participates in dance, he is struck as if by a sorcerer's spell. But far from encouraging him, his parents are appalled—his mother because Crystal is all, and his father because, of course, ballet is "sissy." And adding to the chorus of contempt are four bullying older brothers.

Fiercely, Doone follows unbidden in Crystal's wake as they move from faded but loving Madame Tamara's local classes all the way to the undreamed-of heights of the Ballet School at Queen's Chase. Rumer Godden has long studied the innermost workings of ballet training and can make us feel not only the rigors and aches, but also the singing in the blood that joyously transmutes the body's discipline into art and glory. As Doone at last waits in the wings of the Royal Theatre, Covent Garden, the reader is most assuredly there with him, on the terrifying edge of triumph.

Rumer Godden was born in Sussex, England, but was brought up in India. where she lived for many years until settling finally in southern Scotland. She trained as a teacher of dancing in London and later conducted a ballet school in Calcutta, which experiences contributed to her previous ballet novel, A Candle for Saint Jude, as well as Thursday's Children. She is the author and translator of numerous books, including The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, In This House of Brede, Two Under the Indian Sun (with her sister Jon), and, most recently, The Dark Horse (Viking, 1982).