THE FAMILY UNDER THE BRIDGE
By Natalie Savage Carlson
Pictures by Garth Williams
Harper & Row, 1958
Scholastic, 1986
I picked this book up at the library book sale a couple weeks ago. I had never heard of Natalie Savage Carlson or her book, but I have grown a little soft spot in my heart for France, where the book is set. And I am a fan of Garth Williams, the illustrator. And it was awarded a Newbery Honor medal in 1959. How could I not fork over fifty cents and take it home?
Clearly THE FAMILY UNDER THE BRIDGE is dated. And people who cringe at sticky, sweet children’s books will not like it at all. But as I am dated myself, and happen to have a high tolerance for historical sticky sweet, I adored it. Armand is a portly tramp living—happily—under a bridge beside the River Seine in Paris. He breathes delectable lunches outside Notre Dame and collects discarded foliage at the outdoor flower market, and pushes his baby-buggy full of belongings around the city. At night he returns to his “hidey-hole” under the bridge. It is not a life for everyone, but Armand is content. Until the day he finds a family of starlings (small children, actually—Armand calls them starlings) perched in his hidey-hole. Try as he might to ignore them, Armand is drawn in and the story that follows is delicious, vintage, children’s literature.