TRAIN FOR TIGER LILY by
Louise Riley (Viking Books, 1954)
TRAIN FOR TIGER LILY is a
1954 children’s fantasy written by Louise Riley, a librarian in Calgary,
Alberta, Canada.
I first read TFTL in grade
school in the early 1960’s. In the
intervening years, I’d forgotten the title and author, but still remembered
elements of the plot as being unusual enough that I’ve made several attempts to
identify the book. My Google-fu finally
got good enough to recently pinpoint the book and re-read it via an Inter-Library
Loan request. (Thank you, Murray State
University, for keeping a sixty-year old book still available in your stacks.)
The plot: One car of a train making a days-long trip
across the Canadian plains is occupied by five children of various ages. Mostly pre-teens; brother and sister Duncan
and Cathy, and siblings Mark and Victoria and their younger brother Benjie. They waken from a night of travelling to find
their sleeping car sitting in the middle of… nowhere, apparently, with the
countryside stretching away on all sides and only a signpost reading “Tiger
Lily”. Except for a dining car and a
railcar holding Duncan’s prize calf Prince Rupert and its watchdog McRoberts, the
rest of the train has vanished.
The person behind this is
the train’s porter, Augustus (“Gus”) P. Wallingford. Gus isn’t just a porter, he’s a wizard
(Master of Magic, Second Class). The
lack of any other adults in the children’s railcar makes it possible for to
spend three days in Tiger Lily, where the initial placid appearance doesn’t
rule out adventures and dangers.
Gus is also a Negro, as
virtually all train porters were when the book was written. This was unusual for a children’s book in the
mid-20th century, enough so that even at age 10 or 11, when I first
read TFTL, that fact stood out to me.
Black characters in children’s books, by and large, either didn’t exist
at all, were such minor characters they barely counted, or were negatively stereotyped.
Gus is intelligent,
friendly, and responsible. If he’s led
the children to a place where they might face danger, he also helps protect
them and advises how to deal with it.
The major fantasy element
of the story comes when Seven U O’Leary, a decrepit broken-down old cowboy on a
decrepit broken-down old horse, comes onto the scene. Seven U’s magic horsehair belt, which had
kept him and his horse Lightning young and vigorous, has been stolen by a
witch. Helping Seven U recover the belt
before their three days in Tiger Lily expires leads the children into risk.
(Shape-shifting is also
involved. The youngest boy, Benjie,
finds being a duck so much fun his older sister is afraid he won’t change
back.)
Louise Riley’s writing is
aimed squarely at about a mid-elementary school audience. (I was in 3rd or 4th
grade when I first read it.) The writing
and vocabulary is kept at an appropriate level.
And while the children find themselves at risk, it’s never portrayed in
such a manner as to overly frighten or alarm the book’s younger audience.
(For comparison and
contrast, two other books about young people discovering the existence of magic
and how to use it are Diane Duane’s SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD, aimed at young
teens, and Libba Bray’s A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY for older teens, both of
which go into situations and experiences that are much darker and more
troubling.)
Ms. Riley wrote a small
number of other books, including at least one that also features the
porter/magician Gus. After re-reading
TFTL, I did some research and contacted Ms. Riley’s nephew, who appears to have
the rights to her literary estate, suggesting that with so many older books now
being re-issued as e-books, it might be worthwhile to make Ms. Riley’s books
available again in that format. He
seemed receptive to that idea, and we’ll see if there’s further progress along
that path.
