2019/40: Kingfisher Days: The Play -- Susan Coyne

... what scientists do is observe some aspect of the universe like Uncle Joe's fireplace, conduct an experiment (such as leaving gifts for the fairies), collect data (your letters) and analyse the results ... I think that any reasonable person would say there is some evidence to suggest that a fairy may indeed be living here at Lake of the Woods ... [p. 46]

An autobiographical play: as a little girl, Susan Coyne spent summers at the family's lakeside cottage. The summer she's five, she finds the ruins of an old fireplace, which her father tells her belonged to Uncle Joe Spoondoolak, who was an elf. Susan begins to leave little presents for the elves ... and one morning she finds a thank-you note from fairy princess Nootsie Tah.

Mr Moir, the neighbour who's teaching her about plants and gardening, helps her read and reply to the note, and Susan begins a correspondence with the fairy princess -- which is, of course, really a correspondence with Mr Moir himself.

I'd have liked to see this as a play. It begins with a framing narrative of adult Susan, arriving late and flustered, and softening as she remembers that long-ago summer: I think the juxtaposition of careworn adulthood and delighted, wondering childhood would be especially effective when the two Susans are played by the same actress.

It's a short sweet read, evoking a simple, happy time. It does seem, even within the play, that Susan's friendship with Mr Moir continued into adolescence, and was wholly healthy for them both: but I wonder if contemporary parents would be so trusting. (Susan's parents must have known what was going on, and taken as much delight in their daughter's own delight as Mr Moir does in the play.) The parents are peripheral here, letting Susan play and grow and create: and nobody ever tells Susan that she's being silly, or is too old for such stories.

I read this for the 'play' rubric in the Reading Women 2019 challenge. It reminded me that I find reading plays quite difficult, unless I've seen them! All the components are there, but they don't fit together as easily, for me, as a prose narrative.