During these years, the young Denys was immersed in the natural world, and began to make the sort of close observations that became the hallmark of all that he wrote later. At 15, he started attending Northampton Art College, and continued his studies at the Royal College of Art, before joining the staff of Rugby School as an art master. It was there that he began to write in earnest. For yes and in my opinion, The Little Grey Men is first an foremost B.B.'s, is Denys Watkins-Pitchford's both textual and visual celebration of the bucolic green and tree covered heart of England, although there is also below the surface quite a bit of featured melancholy as there most definitely exists in The Little Grey Men a massive feeling of nostalgia and also of regret for a landscape that is slowly but surely disappearing and being changed, being pushed into modernity (as throughout the story of the last gnomes of England searching for their brother, B.B. balances sweetness and descriptive glory with the harsh realities of civilisation encroaching on the gnomes and destroying or at least irrevocably changing their magically green and delightful existence). And while some readers might well and easily consider the storyline of The Little Grey Men, as B.B., as Denys Watkins-Pitchford has it unfold a bit tedious and rather endless with its constant descriptions of landscape, of vegetation and scenery, for me personally, this is precisely why I have simply loved loved loved The Little Grey Men (and that I also do think there is still more than enough excitement and adventure textually present). urn:lcp:littlegreymen00bb:epub:a9af8ab5-3548-4378-a92c-29e1a1528f82 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier littlegreymen00bb Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t3qv4vf1x Isbn 0416866301 The book was published in 1942, in the dark days of the Second World War. BB’s warm-hearted fairytale lightened the wartime gloom. Such is the book’s appeal to young and old alike that it has stood the test of time and it is still in print. Its sequel ‘Down The Bright Stream’ (1948) continued the gnomes’ adventures in similar grand style. The Little Grey Men established (Denys Watkins-Pitchford, A.K.A. ‘B.B.’) at the forefront of children’s literature.”—CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards

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The plot, involving three gnomes who set off upstream in search of a fourth who went a-questing two years earlier, is thoroughly wrapped in rhapsodic descriptions of bird song and nodding wildflowers, bubbling waters, breezes and storms, grassy pastures, the pleasures of angling, and nature observed from ground level. . . . [F]ans of Wind in the Willows will feel right at home. . . . The story winds down to a happy twist at the end. Given patient listeners, this Carnegie Medal–winner makes a leisurely but finally engaging read-aloud.”— Kirkus It's also an adventure story to rival 'The Hobbit'. The language is sublime, but it’s not a book for children alone; as with the great works of fantasy associated with younger readers, mature readers may also find the books transporting. urn:oclc:799853853 Republisher_date 20130129195654 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20130129163740 Scanner scribe2.toronto.archive.org Scanningcenter uoft Worldcat (source edition) Robin Clobber is a human seven-year-old boy, a scion of a noble family, who meets the gnomes and whose model ship is found and used by them. A children's book (nothing to do with aliens) and the epic story of the last gnomes in England, who explore upstream in search of their missing brother.

Now for a very brief glimpse into Denys Watkins-Pitchford's biography, he was born in Lamport, Northamptonshire as the second son of the Reverend Walter Watkins-Pitchford and his wife, Edith. Denys' elder brother Engel (which means Angel in German) died at the age of thirteen, and since Denys was himself considered to be of rather delicate health as a child, he was educated at home (while his younger brother Roger was sent away to school), with Denys therefore spending much of his time out-of-doors, wandering through the fields, developing a massive and all encompassing love of and appreciation for the English countryside, and which naturally also then massively and all encompassingly influenced Deny Watkins-Pitchford's writing (and his artwork). In 1942, Watkins-Pitchford, now using his pseudonym BB, introduced thousands of children to the last gnomes in England, in his tale The Little Grey Men, which won the Carnegie Medal. I first came across the story at my Church of England primary school in the mid-1960s when it was added to the curriculum — no doubt to keep The Hobbit company — as another adventure tale that had very small people playing a starring part.Down the Bright Stream (sequel to The Little Grey Men (1942), later released as The Little Grey Men Go Down the Bright Stream)