The Olden Days Coat

Margaret Laurence

Why do I continue to read kids' books at the age of thirty-six? In my more cynical moments, I think it's to increase the count on the number of books I read per year, But every once in a while, I stumble across something like Randall Jarrell's The Bat-Poet or Margaret Laurence's The Olden Days Coat, and these books remind me that things that are written for, published for, and marketed to the under-twelve set are sometimes able to combine the literary weight of the work of a great writer with that certain magic that is the exclusive province of the children's book.

The late Margaret Laurence is, of course, one of Canada's foremost authors, and left us on Earth with a body of her work that is, quite simply, stunning. From the perspective of overall quality and beauty, the complete corpus of Laurence's work is matched by that of few authors who write/wrote in the English language, living or dead. The Olden Days Coat, weighing in at a slim twenty-six pages (with roughly half of those full-page illustrations), is not just a short story; it is a distillation of Margaret Laurence's craft.

The story is a simple one, and oft-heard. Sal goes off to spend Christmas at her grandmother's house. While digging around in a chest of old things, she finds an old coat. When she puts it on, she's transported back in time, and meets a girl her own age. I'm pretty sure you can see where this is going already; why finish? As with any plot that's well-used, there are all sorts of possibilities for the writing to slip into cliché. It never happens. Laurence is razor-sharp here, her prose sparkling as fiercely as it does from every page of The Diviners, her finest moment.

A fantastic piece of work, once that I'll be buying for my own children. Its only true failing is that I didn't want it to end.