When I was little, we spent lots of long weekends and school holidays at my grandparents’ house in Myrtleford, in country Victoria. They had a big set of shelves in the playroom at the back of their house, containing books dating from my dad’s childhood. I spent many hours reading the books from those shelves. It felt like I was rediscovering them afresh each time we visited.

My very favourite book was called A Big Ball of String, written and illustrated by Marion Holland, and published in 1958 in the Random House Beginner Book hardback range.

It’s sometimes strange to revisit a book you loved as a child because there are certain elements you forget and others that stand out more prominently in your memory than appear on re-reading. My memory of A Big Ball of String is that a boy who is sick and confined to his bed becomes very inventive, and uses a big ball of string to rig up all sorts of contraptions in his bedroom. Even though I have read this book again in recent times, I was still somewhat shocked when I picked it up again today to discover that in fact this sequence does not occur until page 46 of a 64-page book!

The simple yet endearing illustrations use just three colours, and the images are contemporary to the time of publication. I wonder now whether my fascination with this book was related to watching countless Leave it to Beaver repeats on TV at about the same time. There are certainly a few similarities between the both the physical appearance and the escapades of Beaver and those of the protagonist of A Big Ball of String.

“I had a little string. It was no good at all. I went to look for more string to make a string ball.”

And so the boy starts his adventures collecting pieces of string from wherever he can find them to make a BIG ball of string. Then all that remains is to find some good kind of thing to do with the string!

But getting back to page 46, our new friend eventually comes down with a cold, at which point he realises he can use his string to make his day stuck in bed more interesting:

“NOW I know what will be a good thing! I can stay in my bed with my big ball of string! I can play in my bed! I can do ANYTHING!”

And so this resourceful and inventive boy ties string to his darts so he can get them all back again. He rigs up a string and box on a pulley system between his bed and his shelves so that he can get his books. He ties string to his window blind, to his light switch and to his door. He even ties some string to a toy mouse so that he can play with his cat.

Looking back, I reckon it was partly the independence of this boy that held such strong appeal for me: on his own and without the intervention of adults, he strives and succeeds. And throughout all his misadventures he has complete faith that he can achieve ANYTHING. And after a little while, it’s hard for some of his attitude not to rub off on you.