Meet Lemon Kelly by E.W. Hildick

Recreating your childhood ... used to take hard work and a lot of luck, but today you can do it at the click of a button.

That is what I said when discussing Peril on the Iron Road by Bruce Carter a couple of months ago.

Here is another book I suddenly remembered from my childhood - I think Meet Lemon Kelly was in my Christmas stocking one year in the late sixties.

A Hildick family history site tells us:

Edmund Wallace Hildick (1925-2001) emigrated to the USA and became a well-known author of mostly childrens fiction ... I have so far been unable to find out when he went to America but a record of his death gives his nationality as “Naturalised US Citizen” although he died in London in 2001.

His Wikipedia page tells us his intended audience was "tough, modern kids similar to the ones I teach". And the Guardian obituary of his illustrator Margery Gill says:

By the 1960s, Margery was a sought-after illustrator. Her realistic style suited the era of kitchen sink dramas.

Yet, looking at Meet Lemon Kelly, her drawings do not seem so far from the shorts-and-sandals world of Blyton and Saville.

Is the book any good? I don't know: I hardly dare read it. The danger in revisiting something you are nostalgic about is that you will find it is not as good as you remembered and spoil your memory of it.