Mar

23

A Fungus Among Us.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

March 23, 2007 |

When I was nine my mother gave me a book called, The Wonderful Flight To The Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron (Little, Brown, 1954).

It brought together two of my favorite things: science fiction and mushrooms. I was enthralled. Cameron is not as well-known or highly regarded as some other children’s literature authors, but The Wonderful Flight To The Mushroom Planet is a classic adventure story. David Topman (inspired by Cameron’s own son David who asked her to write a science fiction story) and his friend Chuck Masterson respond to a mysterious green advertisement in the paper for two boys “eight to eleven” to build a spaceship. With spare parts supplied by Chuck’s grandfather, Cap’n Tom, the boys build a spaceship and deliver it to the home of Mr. Tyco Bass, who installs the major equipment and puts the finishing touches on it for interplanetary flight. And, as Mr. Bass explains, Dave and Chuck will have to save the entire race of people of the planet Basidium, a tiny planet orbiting the Earth.

mushroom.jpg

Cameron does an excellent job of keeping this fantastic story grounded with just the right level of detail and a cast of interesting, believable characters. Even David’s parents and Cap’n Tom, who are peripheral, are vividly drawn. The people of Basidium, particularly their leader, The Great Ta, and his “wise men”, Mebe and Oru, are also believable, as are the California coast where David and Chuck live, and the mossy, mushroom-covered surface of cool, misty Basidium. The stand-out character, of course, is Mr. Tyco Bass. A genial scientist with an aura of magic, he’s wise and thoughtful and disarmingly honest as he explains to the boys that he is not human.

The story was so successful, and, as Cameron herself said, “David took it for granted that other books would follow,” that she quickly followed it with Stowaway To The Mushroom Planet (Little, Brown, 1956). Dave tells himself that no journey to Basidium could be as good as the first, but then he tells himself the second one is even better. For us as readers, though, it’s hard to share his enthusiasm. Sequels rarely are as successful as the original. And Stowaway To The Mushroom Planet relied on two a new characters: Mr. Bass’s cousin, Theodosius Bass, and Horatio Q. Peabody, the pompous, ambitious assistant to a prominent astronomer. Peabody finds out about Basidium and sneaks about the boys’ spaceship before they take off on a new flight. With the help of Mr. Bass’s cousin the boys build a new spaceship, since the original was destoryed. Although this was another exciting adventure story, the magic was already starting to wear a little thin and Cameron’s treatment of Peabody was heavy-handed. Mr. Bass’s cameo appearance in this story only highlights what a dismal replacement his cousin is. Again the boys’ spaceship is lost in the end, this time disappearing into the sea. It’s a fitting, poignant metaphor for the change from child to adult: we can remember the adventures we once had, but we can never go back.

However Cameron pressed on and produced two more sequels in two years, Mr. Bass’s Planetoid (Little, Brown, 1958), and A Mystery for Mr. Bass (Little, Brown, 1960). Years later she returned for one last go, Time and Mr. Bass (Little, Brown, 1967), but none of these later books captured the magic of the first two.

Cameron wrote several other books, including the Julia Redfern series, another series of five books, this time following the experiences of a precocious redheaded girl with dreams of being a writer. She also wrote Green And Burning Tree: On The Writing And Enjoyment of Children’s Literature. She also served on the editorial boards of the children’s literature magazines Cricket and Children’s Literature In Education. In the children’s literature review The Horn Book Cameron wrote a three-part essay, published in the October 1972, December 1972, and February 1973 titled “McLuhan, Youth, And Literature”, in which she criticized, among other things, Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Dahl wrote a brief defense, but it was mainly a sniping, sometimes personal debate between the two authors. It’s unfortunate because both understood that, just because a book is written with children in mind, it doesn’t have to be childish or “dumbed down”. Young readers appreciate a well-told story as much as older ones.

Cameron’s dislike of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is also surprising considering that both that book and The Wonderful Flight To The Mushroom Planet share the same quality of all great children’s literature: subversiveness. The adults in the story, aside from Mr. Bass, are subsidiary characters, and on Basidium David and Chuck are the adults. David and Chuck make their trip with their parents’ permission, but during the construction of the spaceship both of David’s parents are worried about his obsession, as well as whether Mr. Bass himself is even real. More striking is the dynamic between Dave, Chuck, Mebe, Oru, and the Great Ta. The two “wise men”, who aren’t particularly wise, are like shadows of Dave and Chuck; they are, in essence, reduced mirror images of the two boys, although not quite as distinct from each other. Cameron distinguishes Dave and Chuck early on, explaining that, “David liked to plan things and draw and talk, but Chuck just liked to get right in and do them without saying much.” Mebe and Oru are not so dissimilar, and regal lordliness of The Great Ta, who has charged his two assistants with saving the Basidiumites, stands in sharp contrast to the quiet attention and determination of Mr. Bass. Basidium itself is a boy’s fantasy world: tall mushroom trees loom over it, there are caves and craggy places to explore, strange flying reptiles and slothlike creatures seen in the distance, and Dave and Chuck are, in the end, its greatest heroes. (For more about the importance of subversiveness in children’s literature check out Alison Lurie’s Don’t Tell The Grown-Ups).

Eleanor Cameron was born Eleanor Frances Butler on March 23, 1912. She passed away on October 11, 1996. A wonderful flight to the Mushroom Planet would be a fitting way to celebrate what would have been her 95th birthday.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Open Hatch » Blog Archive » Planet Z (3D Studio Max Render). on December 14, 2007 5:53 am

    […] I wonder if that idea didn’t have to do with The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, where, if I remember, two kids fly to a decidedly green planet. I love the illustrations in that […]

  2. How To Write A Great Childrens Book. | 7Wins.eu on June 29, 2008 9:58 pm

    […] […]

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