Sailing to Cythera and Other Anatole Stories by Nancy Willard
"Sailing to Cythera and Other Anatole Stories" by Nancy Willard is a collection of three enchanting narratives centered around a five-year-old boy named Anatole, who embarks on mystical quests in rural Michigan. The stories are characterized by a whimsical tone and incorporate elements of fantasy, featuring anthropomorphized animals and magical journeys that explore themes of memory, fear, and personal growth. In "Gospel Train," Anatole and his cat, Plumpet, journey to the afterlife to visit Plumpet's deceased aunt, navigating a perilous train ride that symbolizes a crossing into the unknown. The second story, "The Wise Soldier of Selleback," involves Anatole's quest to retrieve lost memories for a soldier, leading him to confront formidable challenges to restore what has been forgotten. The title story, "Sailing to Cythera," finds Anatole exploring fantastical realms, where he learns to overcome his fears with the help of a misunderstood monster, ultimately forging a bond that transforms his nighttime anxieties. Willard's writing is celebrated for its ability to blend the magical with the mundane, inviting readers into an imaginative world that resonates with both children and adults alike. The collection has received numerous accolades, establishing Willard as a respected figure in children's literature.
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Sailing to Cythera and Other Anatole Stories by Nancy Willard
First published: 1974; illustrated
Subjects: Animals, coming-of-age, the supernatural, and travel
Type of work: Short fiction
Recommended Ages: 10-13
Form and Content
The three narratives that make up Sailing to Cythera and Other Anatole Stories are unified by their mystical tone and content, by the recurring motif of the heroic quest, and by a common protagonist—five-year-old Anatole, who resides in rural Michigan. The slim volume is evocatively illustrated by David McPhail.
In the first of these stories, “Gospel Train,” Plumpet, Anatole’s cat, presides at the funeral of her Aunt Pitterpat, who, having exhausted her nine earthly lives, “has gone to get a new skin” in the mysterious and eternal land of the afterlife. Anatole and Plumpet set out to visit her there, boarding a train occupied by anthropomorphized animals, including owls with bonnets, a raccoon reading a newspaper, and singing rabbits. Aunt Pitterpat is duly found in “Morgentown,” a place from which “nobody . . . sends postcards” and which can be reached only after a hazardous train ride through a dark forest and across a river (perhaps symbolic of the Styx or the Jordan). The journey home becomes a daunting challenge: Anatole himself, aided by various animals, must navigate the train back across the river, lest they all be stranded forever in the abode of the blessed dead.
Anatole’s quest in “The Wise Soldier of Selleback” is to recapture soldier Erik Hanson’s thirty lost (or perhaps stolen) years of memory. The recitation of a magical chant transports Anatole first to Norway, where an old man informs him that he must travel to the sun, the delineator of time, in order to regain Hanson’s fugitive years. “It’s the journeys we make for others,” he counsels, “that give us the power to change ourselves.” Anatole’s journey ultimately involves his climbing a tree that leads, past formidable obstacles (hissing snakes, hideous dogs), to the house of the sun, personified here as a being who is alternately a wizened old man and a mewling infant. The sun’s helpers—two ravens, Thought and Memory—are engaged both to restore Hanson’s thirty lost years and to return Anatole safely home.
Finally, the collection’s title piece, “Sailing to Cythera,” finds Anatole visiting the home of Grandma and genially senile Grandpa. Assigned to spend the night in his mother’s old room, Anatole is terrified by “the dark space under the bed” and is unable to sleep. This time, his questing journey begins when he is translated into the pattern on the wallpaper, which depicts an idyllic pastoral landscape peopled by idealized shepherds and shepherdesses. Adopting the pseudonym “Frère Jacques,” Anatole ignores the warnings of others and accompanies pretty Thérèse aboard the ship of the Emperor of the Moon on a voyage to the mystical island of Cythera, reputed home of “the garden of the golden bough.” On the island, Anatole encounters the much-feared Blimlin, a monster who, despite his intimidating appearance, turns out to be helpful, trustworthy, and decidedly lonely. It is he, in fact, who leads Anatole to the lavish garden of the golden bough. When the Blimlin confesses his longing for a “nice dark space” in which to live, a bargain is quickly struck: The friendly monster will guide Anatole home and in turn will inhabit the space under the boy’s bed, thereby (in an ironic reversal of a common theme) dispelling Anatole’s nighttime fears.
Critical Context
Nancy Willard’s highly literate books of poetry and prose for young audiences have garnered her an unbroken string of awards and honors, including a 1974 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for Sailing to Cythera and Other Anatole Stories; in 1973, the collection was also named one of the fifty best books of the year by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. The critical and popular success of this volume has spawned such sequels as The Island of the Grass King: The Further Adventures of Anatole (1979), another Lewis Carroll Award winner, and Uncle Terrible: More Adventures of Anatole (1982). Further, Willard won the prestigious Newbery Medal in 1982 and a Special Honor Book Plaque from the Society of Children’s Book Writers in 1981 for A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers (1981), a book of poems for children.
These awards (and the many others that her books have attracted) attest the high regard in which Willard is held by both her audience and critics. In noting Willard’s accomplishments and contributions to her art, such critics most often cite the sensitive manner in which her works, at their best, create an imaginative world where a pervading sense of magic blends effortlessly with a reverence for concrete, even homely detail. This unlikely fusion of fantasy and reality poses no real dichotomy for the author herself: Willard has asserted that “there are two kinds of truth—the scientific answer and the imaginative answer. And we need both of them.”