Did I already tell you that I have chosen a new "series" of books to tackle this year? Last year I finished up the Little House books, which I started to read the year before, which was satisfying in a variety of ways. Good books and compelling, comforting reading and the satisfaction of finishing nine books (even if it took me longer to read them all than anticipated). But I was ready for something a little different. I bought the Penguin series of books--Penguin Lines that were published in 2013 in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the London Underground, or the Tube. The books are small and compact and novella-length and quite fun. The series is made up a dozen books--one each for the twelve Underground Lines. So:
Victoria Line: Mind the Child
Central Line: The 32 Stops
East London Line: Buttoned-Up
District Line: What We Talk About When We Talk About the Tube
Northern Line: A Northern Line Minute
Metropolitan Line: A Good Parcel of English Soil
Bakerloo Line: Earthbound
Jubilee Line: A History of Capitalism
Hammersmith & City Line: Drift
Waterloo & City Line: Water-City, City-Waterloo
Circle Line: Heads and Straights
Piccadilly Line: The Blue Riband
The series is interesting in that the books are not exactly about each Underground line. Each author writes about something particular to that area of London. It's sort of hard to tell even what each book is about as there is no real description on the back cover, more a Q&A with the author with interesting/quirky vital statistics. So it is an adventure starting each book, as you are not sure what you are in for. Once again I had started reading these books ages ago (two years ago to be specific). I had a different idea on how I was going to approach these books and was going to read them in tandem with something else. But I read one book and a chapter of the other and then they just sort of sat there and languished. But now I am eager to get back to them and plan on just reading them in no particular order and on their own and not as any sort of larger project.
I read Mind the Child: The Victoria Line back in 2014 and have just this past weekend finished a second book Heads and Straights: The Circle Line. I will write about the latter book in the next few days, but to keep it all neat and tidy and together as a complete set, I thought I would share the original post that started it all. So, what follows appeared here a couple of years ago.
* * * * *
It's the social aspect of London, social as in societal ills, that the author takes as her topic for Mind the Child: The Victoria Line by Camila Batmanghelidjh and Kids Company. It's tourist London that I remember so clearly, but what about the real London? Mind the Child was an eye-opening and sometimes harrowing read about a portion of society that should be cherished and cared for, but is all too often abused and neglected--children.
Batmanghelidjh begins her narrative with the story of her own sister who jumped in front of a train but fell between the rails and only injured her leg (she later subsequently had better luck in committing suicide).
"Since then, each time someone jumps on the tracks, bringing the station to a halt, I find myseld preoccupied with the discprepant journeys we all take in life: the parallel existences of the destination-driven crowd, who move rapidly to complete a task, and the destination-despondent, who decide life is no longer worth pursuing."
It wasn't the loss of her sister that prompted Batmanghelidjh to work with children. It was a love of helping others. And it was a family trait handed down from earlier generations--this desire to serve others. ". . . some of the richest cultures put care-giving at the forefront of their agenda, and see it as an expression of refinement rather than failure or weakness."
"We tend to look at the Tube map only when we have a destination in mind. Take the Victoria Line: its sky-blue snakes clearly through the tangle of other lines, from Brixton in south London all the way to Walthamstow in the northeast. In this book, I want us to take a less direct route. I want to introduce you to some of the extraordinary kids struggling daily with the dichotomy of living and dying, who I have met through my work at Kids Company and, prior to that, through a range of other settings."
Mind the children--much like mind the gap--these are the children we don't see or demonize if we do, the ones who fall between the cracks. Mind the Child is a combination of personal narrative by the children themselves, Batmanghelidjh's experiences working with them, and many statistics about crime and violence. The numbers however aren't empty and meaningless as numbers usually are. Hearing the voices of these children, who don't seem to ever be quite visible to politicians puts faces on the numbers. Each child speaks in their own voice, some pulling themselves out of poverty and bad situations and others mired in it no matter how hard they try and lift themselves out. The author also explains the neuroscience of battered children--how living in abusive households affects them and stunts them. I had no idea what to expect when I picked up this book. Victoria Line? It was her inspiration and it is certainly a journey. It's reading books like this that put life and the world into sharp perspective. It was not an easy read at times, but it was such a good read and I am happy that I was finally prompted to pick it up.
Next up is A Good Parcel of English Soil: The Metropolitan Line by Richard Mabey.