Access So Much To Tell Constructed By Valerie Grove Presented As Mobi

known very little about Webb, I had this recommended to me as a good way into her life and times at Puffin.
Make no mistake, she would have been instrumental in pulling children's literature into that second golden age with the platform she presented and expected of upandcoming children's authors.

I was struck by the constant problems Webb had with relationships but also the absolutely ceaseless energy in which she ran and drove Puffin.
From publications of which she expected a very high standard to the Puffin club outings in which it reads as if many children's writers were rather hauled to rather than attending freely a particular moment in which William Mayne was dragged along to a weekend event now reads with extreme discomfort.
Thanks to Kaye children in thes and beyond had affordable access to Garner, Pearce, Garfield, Aiken and others such as Sutcliff and yes, Dahl who seemed a formidable presence in and of himself.

Appalling cover aside, I was a little frustrated by the fact that much of the book focused on her onesided relationship with the artist Ronald Searle.
Although this was clearly a huge part of Kaye's own life I went into the book wanting a lot more of her time at Puffin.
I suspect that the stories found within these pages are only the tip of the iceberg,
Remind me never to read books with pink cursive type on the cover,

There's a quote from Kaye Webb on the cover of 'So Much To Tell' 'My business life has worked out beautifully.
My personal life has been the reverse, '

I was interested in reading about Kaye Webb's tenure from thes tos as the head of Penguin's children's book publishing arm Puffin.
Grove was interested in telling me about Kaye's

sparkling social life and multiple marriages it would have worked out better if I shared the English interest in Ronald Searle, Webb's second or third husband, but unfortunately, I don't.
As a result, we parted ways at about page, Only just scrapesfrom me, because of my memories of classics Puffins, and Puffin Club magazines.
I just didn't find the biography very compelling, Picked up because the name Kaye Webb immediately conjured up the Puffin Club, and in the photo on the cover her armful of books includes iconic favourites from my childhood.
I was just a bit too old to be a Puffineer, but in our bookish household my youngest sister was, and a number of my old books still sport Puffin bookplates.
The Puffin Club magazine was like a personal letter from Kaye to her eager readers,

Reading this book brought home to me that you can take decisions that really mess up your later life, without realising it at the time.
"My business life has worked out beautifully, My private life has been the reverse," Kaye famously said, She rushed into three marriages, the first to a complete cad, the second to a lovely man who had long been a friend, and whom she left for Ronald Searle after a romance conducted initially by letter.
Who in turn walked abruptly out on her ten years later, leaving her devastated, You can't help feeling she should have stayed with husband number two,

Bizarrely her twins, fathered by Searle, were born while she was still married to her second husband but living with Searle, and were officially registered as her husband's Searle adopted them later.
She went to the US to give birth, her husband at her bedside, Searle in the UK he didn't meet them until they were three months old, and Kaye bitterly regretted this, feeling they had failed to bond.
This gives some inkling of the misjudgements she made, The breakup of the marriage had lasting negative effects on the three of them Searle, at, lives happily in the south of France with his second wife.


In a sense Kaye was lucky just as Searle left she was offered her opportunity at Puffin: the right person in the right place at the right time.
But her work became her life, the quarter of a million Puffineers her virtual grandchildren, and on reluctant retirement she found herself living alone, virtually housebound by arthritis, feeling useless and neglected.
Her life is a lesson in not defining yourself exclusively through your work, which can be taken away and leave you a nonperson.
Extremely well researched and well written biography of Kaye Webb, founder of The Puffin Club, She lived during a fascinating periods tos, She was a strong and interesting character, Kaye is perhaps, an unusual subject for a biography, Her husband, Ronald Searle was much better known and more celebrated, The marriage lasted for ten years and she nurtured him after his unspeakable experiences in Changi jail, but he apparently came to feel suffociated by her and the domestic life.
She nurtured many a children's author too and encouraged young people to read, Good woman if somewhat overpowering, So Much To Tell Kaye Webb, a journalist with no publishing experience, burst into the world of children's books inand changed the face of children's publishing forever.
This title presents the story of the woman who brought the joy of books to children everywhere whilst battling the emotional pain that plagued her private life.
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