Hide till Day-time by Joan Phipson

This book is very very old - first published in 1977. The library I visit each week still has/had a copy but it is in very poor shape and so sadly it will now be culled. Very old Puffin books always go yellow and the print size is too small and while I do like the internal illustrations by Mary Dinsdale, they would not appeal to a modern child.

BUT this is a terrific short story and it is not at all dated. If you have ever visited a large department store you will recognise the scenes and if you have been to our David Jones store in Sydney then the story will really come to life especially for adults with fond memories of the Food Hall in their old store. Sadly the food hall has been moved and it no longer has the charm or delights of the previous offering.

It has been a long shopping day. The children - Agatha aged nine and her little brother are tired. Their father is exasperated and feeling cross and their mother just wants to pick up something easy for dinner as they make their last shopping purchase for the day.

The David Jones Food Hall is full of people. It is nearly closing time (which in the olden days was 5.30pm) and Agatha and George are separated from their parents. Then there is a disaster. George knocks into a woman who is waiting for honey to be poured from a huge container and he falls to the floor covered in honey and flour. Agatha knows her parents will be so upset and she is sure all of this is her fault so she hustles George away and up the escalator and lift trying to find a bathroom where she can wash off all the sticky honey. All of this takes a long time and when Agatha eventually arrives back in the Food Hall everyone is gone including her parents. The store is closed and it seems the children will need to spend the night but why do they need to hide?

The next scenes will remind you of books like From the Mixed up files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler and the picture book Corduroy. Do you remember the scene in Corduroy when the night watchman is hunting through the store after hearing a loud crash. In Hide till Day-time Agatha rides a scooter and knocks over a display and the night watchman comes up with his torch so, just like Corduroy, she quickly adds herself to a store display beside a store dummy or mannequin. It is very funny.  

Hide till Day-time contains a delicious amount of tension. I do hope one day someone will reprint this book with a new cover (the old cover above from 1979 is actually okay) and new illustrations.

Here are some older covers - I was pleased to see this was published as an Antelope book they were always terrific. 

Joan Phipson was born in 1912. She died in 2003. Two of her novels, Good Luck to the Rider (1953) and The Family Conspiracy (1963), won the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award. Maurice Saxby, the children's literature expert, wrote: "More than any other writers, Eleanor Spence and Joan Phipson have perhaps helped guide the direction of Australian children's literature in the past 30 years. They have both expressed in their novels of family life not only social changes but the concerns and preoccupations of a growingly complex Australian society."

Here is her obituary by Julia Eccleshare.

I would like to discover more about Mary Disdale - her art style reminds me of the fine line work of Charles Keeping, Edward Ardizzone, and Noela Young.