Starting with some Brownie stories: Freda Collins' The Brownie Year
in which apparently children forage unsupervised for poisonous toadstools...
Well, supervised only by small fictional beings!
Betty and the Brownies by Ethel Talbot
frontispiece from Betty and the Brownies: 'Something escaped from Betty's pocket and went spinning down the room.' What do you think it was?
An added delight of looking through old books: the things that are left behind. This undated note reads, 'Sandra Wemyss knows how to use a telephone. (Mrs) D Wemyss.'
Do you think Sandra put it into the book for safekeeping, forgot it, and had to ask her mother to write it out again? Or did she use it as a bookmark after the telephone test was safely ticked off by Brown Owl on her Brownie record card?
Do Brownies still need to know how to use a telephone as part of the Brownie Programme?
Marigold Becomes a Brownie by Susan Jolly
Amanda and the Brownies by Verily Anderson
and moving up to Guides,
Dorothea Moore's Judy, Patrol Leader, first published 1934.
Here is some information about this cover of a later edition.
Here is the irresistibly exciting synopsis of Judy from the flyleaf.
The Rising of the Larks by Cris Johnson. Something tells me there is a very long-running pun about singing here.
The Hawthorn Patrol by Diana Pares.
Mrs Osborn Hann's Rosemary the Rebel.
The Ragtail Patrol by C. R Mansell
Another title by Dorothea Moore, Guide Gilly, Adventurer
The Guide's Honour by May Wynne
Frontispiece (the cover of this copy wasn't very interesting) of June the Girl Guide by Brenda Girvin.
I love the thick rag paper of most of these books, and the clear print. Reading a physical book, especially a nicely produced one like these, is a three-dimensional real life multi-sensory experience that just can't be replaced by reading on a screen. (Though e-versions would be very helpful for quick comparisons across multiple stories, key word searching etc.)
The Second Rucksack Book has my favourite cover purely because it wraps a panorama-format picture around back, spine and front.
Gillian of the Guides by Winifred Darch. I am reliably informed, based on analysis of her uniform in the cover art rather than by reading the story, that Gillian is a Company Leader, which in the pre-Rangers era, when girls of modern Guide, Pathfinder and Ranger ages would all be Guides in the same Company, meant a senior Guide with considerable experience (possibly more Guiding years under her belt than some new Guiders!) and some Guider-like responsibility within the Company. Company Leader status is reflected by her three stripes (one for Second, two for Patrol Leader as per Judy above). And the gloves, perhaps.
Have you read this book? Are we correct?
Well-known Chalet School author Elinor M Brent-Dyer's Judy, the Guide. Not to be confused with Judy, Patrol Leader, above.
This is a very small selection (the ones we had with dustjackets both surviving and jolly) from a very well-populated 20th century genre of Brownie and Guide stories. If this is your sort of fiction, have you read True to the Trefoil: a celebration of fictional Girl Guides (Girls Gone By, 2010), ed. Tig Thomas? More about this book here, and about the publishers here.
Most of these titles, and many similar ones, are still readily available second hand via, e.g. Bookfinder or ABEBooks. (Don't imagine that either is wholly independent of the ubiquitous Am-z-n, but sort of.)
