The Put 'Em Rights comes under the latter although the subject matter is something I am very familiar with which is travelling preachers usually of a evangelical sort who come as the name suggests to galvanize people to action around social or moral issues of the day.
In this particular story it's the impact of travelling gypsy preacher who inspires Sally, a Ministers daughter, to form a group of six children to do "good works" in their village of Under Ridge after a meeting on the village green.
In modern parlance they act as Social Activists, attempting to put situations right such as a dog being physically and emotional maltreated, a woman with a dirty house and equally dirty baby, a family facing eviction and anther facing lack.
What they discover in their eagerness is often situations are more complex than they originally thought and also less clear-cut such as the mother has a mental illness - depression - the family facing eviction are not only being evicted by the father of one of the boys but for theft which when they get further into it is a father taking the blame for what a severely mentally disabled boy has literally taken a shine to, oblivious to the notion it is theft being in human terms more like a magpie from that point of view.
What is more and I feel is one of more worthwhile aspects to this story is while they start of on the basis of changing other peoples attitudes to the right they soon learn their own are not necessarily any better with Sally being impatient and self righteous, Podge is well looked after but careless in looking after his possessions such as a bicycle just assuming as they go messing or are stolen because he doesn't put them away safely his parent will just buy him another, not appreciating the sacrifice they made in buying him them.
Amanda starts to realize she is really is very lazy and selfish being allowed to do nothing and get out of taking turns in helping.
Although Enid doesn't say this (and forgive my C.S. upbringing and background for dropping a religious point in) what she's alerting the reader to is the notion that caring for everyone else's values and attitudes without looking at your own first is foolhardy.
We may be better off caring about other peoples but working on our own, transforming those we encounter by it even if we may not be perfect rather than coming over as somewhat pious, lecturing others.
The outcome of this book is unsatisfactory in one respect, and that is underneath much of the plot is class attitudes and prejudice.
Bobby is 'working class' his mother unusually for 1946 has to work as his father is in prison and he feels very much ill at ease with the other five middle class children who haven't struggled as he has.
He starts off being friendly with them, almost an equal but Sally's socially superior attitude starting from how she tries to stop a mother from spreading gossip only goads this woman into revealing the awful truth of where Bobby's father is as his own mother has been hiding it feeling this whole thing has just been a matter of the children playing "goody-goody" to make them feel superior. He feels crushed and for all their mixing he can only ever be with 'his own' although they do make up and share ice creams.
In some respects I feel rather than resigning oneself to your lot, Bobby would of better served by having those children apologize for how he'd been treated and encouraged to give breaking out of his social class a second chance and from that be at the point he is able to take advantage of his own abilities rather than in effect limiting himself because of what had happened.
Although the ending could of been better thought through, I did feel this was a novel well worth reading.
*There are some alterations in this 1992 version - some of the essential social commentary is diminished although later editions are more altered as sadly the case with most of this authors stories.
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