As an avid reader, and because reading is such a personal thing, it’s difficult for me to recommend one book to people I’ve never met. But in keeping with the theme of my story, Children of the Gentle People, which centres around food and friendship during times of unease, I’d like to suggest one beloved book: Lolo Houbein’s One Magic Square.
I still can’t get the image out of my mind. Against the backdrop of war ravaged 1940s Holland, an emaciated child, a mile from home during curfew, is offered a cabbage by a sympathetic German soldier. The consequences are dire whatever choice she makes—accept the cabbage and risk probable death if caught, or go home to her family empty handed and face certain death by starvation. The little girl gambles in favour of food and struggles home in the dark, dragging the enormous vegetable in a sack through the snow. Her bravery is rewarded—the cabbage feeds her family for a week.
To me, this scenario is inconceivable, yet it is appears as just a snippet, worded in a matter of fact let’s-get-on-with-life manner that had me enthralled with a book found, of all places, in the gardening section of my local library. Out of a considerable array of food growing manuals, something made me pick up One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein. I’d never before perused the gardening section, but I’d already chosen my novels and was waiting for my husband to pick his. I’d been playing around with herbs and vegetables and had a vague idea in my mind of a potager type garden I thought might be doable next season. This book had an inviting look to it and the title itself suggested triumph through manageability. Worth leafing through, I decided, and checked it out along with the fiction.
As a guide to small scale organic gardening, One Magic Square didn’t disappoint; nothing was left out in the easy to follow format and anyone with a mind to be a successful producer of home grown nutrition could be guaranteed success, I was sure, with this book as a companion. This no-nonsense author managed to give me immediate confidence that I could grow a food and herb garden to my own specifications; all I had to do, she told me, was put the book down, go outside, and get started. But what kept me riveted was the mesmerising way this woman had of weaving intriguing personal tales and observations into her practical instructions with humour, humility and encouragement. I couldn’t put it down.
The gripping tale of that long ago wartime child appears as just a sidebar, really, to her savoury peacetime version of nourishing cabbage soup. Open the book to any page: you’ll find yourself leaning over the fence, exchanging pleasantries with your green-thumbed neighbour who has an excellent suggestion for preserving your beans and reminisces about vegetarian delicacies cooked over campfires on a long ago visit to India. Flip to another page and you’re sipping tea with your favourite aunt who reveals her most exquisite salad dressing recipe, and has definite ideas about the nutritional value of greens. “There is no excuse,” she tells you, “for an iceberg with mayonnaise from a jar.”
Peppered with stories of gardens grown in unyielding conditions, food prepared during the toughest of times and meals shared with friends from diverse cultures, this book had me stirred. I wouldn’t just be sticking a few carrot seeds in the ground; I would be taking steps to positively change my world. So excited was I that immediately I went online to order my own copy of One Magic Square, as well as several more to have on hand to give to those in my life I hoped would be even a fraction as inspired. It was easy to send an email to the publisher telling of my enthusiasm for and appreciation of this outstanding book.
I was elated when, not two days later, I received an email from Lolo Houbein herself, thanking me for my kind words—the thoughtful lady at the publishing house had forwarded my email. For well over a year we exchanged emails, me sharing my triumphs, which were many, and my failures which were few due, I’m sure, to my desire to send positive news—as a now devoted fan I was determined to have some results worthy of such an audience. Then one day, I took a closer look at her listed previous publications, which she’d never mentioned. I discovered that Lolo had written several earlier books, in other genres: short stories, novels, travel volumes, memoirs and children’s books.
I managed to track down most of them, and I was astounded at her achievements. Here I had been light heartedly exchanging thoughts on the best companions for my tomato plants and the unwillingness of my spinach to perform, with someone who—against overwhelming odds—had lived a monumental life of personal and humanitarian achievement.
I could write volumes about this amazing woman, but I’ll stick to the one book here which I have pulled out once again— nearly ten years after I discovered it—as it is gardening season as I write. I still think about the wisdom of such a highly accomplished and intelligent, yet modest woman, who shrugged off my disappointment that her long ago published books never found a global audience. Perhaps One Magic Square, which has drawn an international following, is her most important work after all, for its message is for everyone:
By growing some of your own food and starting a pantry collection of staples, you take control of your food needs if times of chaos should arrive. Meanwhile, you eat healthier, fresher, tastier food, enjoy gentle exercise and make new friends. Nothing unites people more congenially than eating, swapping, and comparing locally grown good food. Food gardening is the most intelligent adult endeavor on earth and ought to be understood by anyone who eats.
Lolo Houbein
Lolo Houbein is one of those rare people the world could use more of. I have the deepest gratitude for this woman, now ninety, for offering me her friendship and her encouragement over the years—in gardening and in writing and life in general. One Magic Square indeed. You never know where a randomly chosen book can lead.
— K. Jane May’s fiction publications include Grain, Pulp Literature, and The Antigonish Review. She placed second in both the 2019 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition and the 2018 Sheldon Currie Prize and was shortlisted for The Fiddlehead’s 2020 Fiction Contest and longlisted for the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize
You can read K. Jane May’s story in Issue 300 Summer Fiction 2024. Order the issue now:
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