Follow the Yellow Brick Road

I was recently sent the much-awaited sequel to Lauren Oliver's Delirium, Pandemonium. These are highly recommended, far superior to many Young Adult dystopian fantasies. In an alternate USA, where love has been classed as a disease, a repressive government insists on all young people being "cured" through a medical procedure similar to a lobotomy. A young woman named Lena has escaped the city and joined a rebel group, when she meets the son of a government official. He tells her of the banned books his father locks away. The one he describes is L Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Image: Wikipedia.org

This American classic was first published in 1900. It was a huge success, and although Baum tried to leave Oz behind in later years, his child fans insisted on more. After his death in 1919 other writers continued the series. Baum's intention was to write American fairy tales, but without what he considered the frightening aspects of those books, although Princess Langwidere from Ozma of Oz with her collection of interchangeable heads scared me as a child!

Probably most British people are more familiar with the musical film version, The Wizard of Oz (1939). As with Baum's own film version of it and those made later, Dorothy is not a little girl, but a teenager; Judy Garland was 16 when The Wizard of Oz was made. Denslow's illustrations from the Baum's books clearly show her as much younger.

Image: bygosh.com

By one of those serendipitous coincidences, two other cultural experiences have made me think about Oz this month. The first was watching the original film of True Grit (1969) with John Wayne. I am not normally a great Western fan, but I love this film, and it has a great many Oz resonances for me. 

The story of a young girl, Mattie Ross, who is on a quest: this time not to get home, but to find the murderers of her father, she must exhibit a great deal of courage and persistence, and to team up with a less than prepossessing group of companions to do so. 

Image: movieposterdb.com

While Dorothy is by far the superior of her companions in courage and intellect, Mattie has the moral superiority over her companions; her avowed aim is justice for the murder of her father, while La Boeuf and Rooster Cogburn want the reward Chaney's capture will bring. The process of the journey and achievement of "natural justice" in both The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and True Grit is redemptive to the companions: their characters are reformed. Mattie and Dorothy both get to return home. Interestingly, in Baum's book Dorothy does not stay in grey and dreary Kansas for long; soon she and Aunt Em and Uncle Frank are permanently living in beautiful, colourful Oz (which is much like Hollywood where Baum moved after the success of his Oz books); clearly novel-Dorothy doesn't subscribe to the MGM view that "there's no place like home"!

Image: fanpop.com

The second event was a trip to the theatre to see Wicked, a lovely surprise from my lovely boyfriend. Billed as the "untold story of the witches of Oz", it is based on the series of novels by Geoffrey Maguire. Events are told from before Dorothy arrives in Oz and while she is there. I haven't read the book, so please forgive me if the treatment of the story in the novel is different! Wicked is the story of Elphaba, a girl born to the governor of Munchkinland with green skin. She has a sister, Netta Rose, who is born disabled due to their father's insistence that their mother eats a herb to ensure that she is born with white skin. They are both sent to Shiz University where they meet the spoilt, shallow Galinda. Through a misunderstanding, Galinda (Glinda) and Elphaba become room-mates, and eventually, friends. Elphaba's strong sense of justice and fairness leads her to travel to the Emerald City to obtain justice for the oppressed talking animals of Oz, where she, like Dorothy before her, expects to meet the Great and Powerful Oz, and finds that he is something very different. Elphaba and Galinda's reactions to this knowledge are different, causing a rift between the friends. Will they become reunited?

It should be noted that the novel of Wicked is not aimed at children, Pandemonium is definitely Young Adult (13+) and the 2010 film of True Grit is a 15. However on the two occasions I have been to the theatre to see Wicked, children of I would guess 8+ have been in the audience. I would recommend the book of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to 7+, and of course the film can be enjoyed by all ages.

The best known song from Wicked, much murdered by the cast of Glee and American Idol contestants(!) is Defying Gravity.

Nannies and Grannies and Governesses, oh my!

A couple of months ago, I was watching Nanny McPhee,. I realised that while I knew the film was based on the Nurse Matilda stories of Christianna Brand I had never read them. I finally found a second hand copy of the collected tales, illustrated by her cousin Edward Ardizzone, and I read them with enormous enjoyment.

Of course, the film changes many of the details of the stories; Mr Brown is not a slightly hopeless, hardworking undertaker; instead there is an incredibly fecund Mr and Mrs Brown with an indeterminate number of incredibly naughty children. The Browns live in a large country house with a butler, cook and tweeny (Evangeline), and one of the most memorable pieces of naughtiness they get up to involves them going through the green baize door into the servants' domain, culminating in an almighty food fight in a pond, with Cook's wig as a major casualty. I particularly enjoyed the repetition of listing the naughtiness, and I can imagine children wriggling in vicarious delight. Some will be familiar to people who have watched the film (decapitating dolls, feigning measles, dressing animals in best clothes), although the outcome is quite different. The enigmatic Nurse Matilda, who arrives when children need but don't want her, but must go when they want but don't need her, is much the same, and it would be interesting to discuss with children whether she really does get less ugly as the children behave better, or do they grow to love her and therefore no longer see her blemishes?

Nurse Matilda is a great contrast to the original magical nanny, P. L. Travers' Mary Poppins. The Mary of the book is an altogether far more astringent character than Nurse Matilda (and bears little resemblence to the saccharine Disney version). Traver's Mary is vain, sharp tongued and clearly doesn't speak 1930's received pronunciation: "Strike me pink!" It's a hugely enjoyable re-read, and again, it would be an interesting subject of  discussion- it has been adapted numerous times, including similarities with Hindi film Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, where Geeta, the female lead, is like a cross between Maria Von Trapp and Mary Poppins. Graphic novel fans may remember Mary Poppins being in the Blazing World sequences from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (definitely not recommended for children!)

Interestingly in both books the magical nannies have had to come to help out the families because the badly-behaved children have driven away the former nannies. Mrs Brown fails to see that her children do anything wrong and has absolutely no authority over them; Mrs Banks in the first book has only recently had the twins and is rarely mentioned. The fathers seem to have no involvement with the children at all.

With nannies being less and less common for middle class families, there remains a problem of obtaining suitable childcare where one parent staying at home is an impossible dream. Who, then, steps in to look after the children? In  Granny Nothing by Catherine McPhail there is Sue, the  mean, reality TV obsessed nanny of the McAllister children (Stephanie, Ewen and Baby Thomas), whose parents are too busy to see that they are miserable. Then in the middle of a dark and stormy night Granny Nothing arrives, the mysterious mother of narrator Stephanie's father.

Mr McAllister is ashamed of his eccentric, fat, untidy mother, and initially only Thomas sees the good in her. However, as she helps the children deal with such threats as scary dogs and bullies, she wins over Stephanie, Ewen and their school friends, and ultimately is the conduit for Nanny Sue's downfall. While perhaps not magical, she certainly has special powers and is incredibly strong. According to Strident Publishing, the book was reissued due to popular demand from teachers, librarians and children, and I can quite see why: I read it on a train journey, and it is lucky my train could go no further without going into the sea, as I was enjoying it so much I would certainly have missed my stop!

Imagine a cross between Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and Jane Eyre, and that would give you an idea of how engrossing and enjoyable the first book in  Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series is. Miss Penelope Lumley is 15 years old, and having completed her studies at Agatha Swanburne's Academy for Poor Bright Females, she is summoned to an interview at Ashton Place, the home of Lord and Lady Ashton. She is expecting a rigorous interview, and is instead surprised to find Lady Constance begging her to stay. However, unline the young Browns or Banks, Alexander, Beowulf and Cassiopeia Incorrigible are not naughty; they were discovered in the forests surrounding Ashton Place, apparently raised by wolves and with an unfortunate fascination with squirrels. As many teachers have asked themselves, what does one do with a child who growls in public? Penelope does incredibly well until, at one of the most hilarious Christmas parties I have ever read about, events come to a head and the mystery is at least partially explained; of course, there is a sequel...

With the exception of The Incorrigibles, I would suggest that these books could be read with great pleasure to 6 years +, read alone from 7-8 years, depending on the child's confidence. I would read The Incorrigibles to 8 year olds, but I think the humour and sophistication would be best appreciated by 9 years + (and stolen by parents and older siblings!)

What is Martin Amis reading?

On the recent Faulks on Fiction BBC TV programme, Sebastian Faulks contended that since the First World War, literary fiction has turned its back on the traditional hero, leaving him or her to "genre" fiction and children's fiction. In an odd exchange, Martin Amis, interviewed on his anti-hero John Self, announced that when asked whether he would write a children's novel, he answers: "... 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable".

Understandably a number of children's novelists and academics were annoyed about these comments. As well as those quoted in the Guardian piece linked above, academic and children's novelist Charles Butler wrote in his blog that if he cannot envisage writing for an audience of children, presumably he is denying consciously writing for adults- and specifically an audience who enjoy reading about the marital and sexual foibles of middle aged men.

In a slightly cynical Twitter conversation with the good folks of SA4QE (fellow Russell Hoban fans), we wondered firstly how well Amis's latest tome had sold, and secondly whether the enthusiastic feuder (Julian Barnes, Anna Ford, Terry Eagleton) had recently fallen out with other lit-fic stalwarts Jeanette Winterson and Salman Rushdie, who have both produced critically acclaimed children's novels without any suggestion of pandering to lesser intellects.

I was fascinated to read recently about Canadian novelist Yann Martell's What Is Stephen Harper Reading? project, where he sent 100 books to the Prime Minister, one a fortnight, after being unimpressed by Harper's reception of Canadian artists at an event to mark 50 years of the Canadian Council for the Arts, and I started to wonder which of my favourite children/ Young Adults books I would send to Amis, to convince him that simple writing need not be simplistic; that writers for children habitually do so because of the freedom of imagination that such writing affords. And I came up with the following list:

1. The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban. I have already written about this book here, so I hope that it is obvious why I would choose this. Hoban is a widely acclaimed (although under-read) novelist who rates his children's fiction as no less important than his novels for adults, and his next novel will be a Young Adult novel, Soonchild.

2. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, the first in the Mortal Engines series, is a dystopian fantasy about the world far in the future, after a devastating war. Natural resources are at a premium, and cities have become scavengers. They are traction cities, swallowing smaller cities and taking their resources. The protagonists, Tom Natsworthy and Hester Shaw, are thrown together to survive. I admire this series, because there is a perception (even in this BBC Open Book programme) that children's books should have a happy ending. Hester must make a decision to ensure her's and Tom's survival. However, the consequences of this decision are far reaching, and the effects of it are terrible.

3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This is an example what I believe great children's books do so well- they convey a profound message in a simple way. In this novel, the message is about the importance of love in the development of children. Mary and Colin have been emotionally deprived, and this has had a dreadful effect on them; Mary is close to being completely emotionally stunted due to the neglectful behaviour of her parents. Colin is a hysterical hypochondriac, convinced that his father's inability to connect with him is because he (Colin) is about to die. The garden is both an embodiment of the children's emotional growth, and of the importance of children to connect with other children, to see the success of their own labours and follow their interests without undue interference from adults.

4. Skellig by David Almond. Again, I have written about it before. It is a rich, layered novel, written in simple, clear prose, drawing on a range of literary sources to tell a truly beautiful story.

5. Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer- a sort of ghost story, or a time switch novel about which I intend to write more fully in the future. It can be seen as the disintegration and re-integration of a personality, but it is much more than that. It rejects simple classifications. I would try to send Amis the pre-1980s edition, as the ending is far better! Edit: since posting this last night I've been hearing Charlotte Sometimes by The Cure in my head!

6. Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver, another that I have already written about. I would hope that Amis would be impressed by Paver's creation of an imaginary world; something that children's writers do so well. In my opinion, outside genre fiction many adult writers do this less than successfully; perhaps why many of them write about marital difficulties in North London or New York?

7. The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff, part of the Eagle of the Ninth series. This is a perennial favourite, from the 1950s/ 1960s era of children's fiction from which I could have chosen any number of fantastic authors- Phillipa Pearce, Alan Garner, Henry Treece, as well as Penelope Farmer above. This novel examines the invasion of Britannia by the Saxons, and the conflicts between duty, family loyalty and the bitterness, estrangement and a desire for revenge that Aquila, the protagonist of the novels, experiences when the two areas collide. Like Wolf Brother, Amis might be impressed by the recreation of a world, but the recognisable conflicts that Aquila experiences.

8. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. I very nearly chose The Ruby in the Dust from Pullman's earlier quartet about Sally Lockhart, an unconventional nineteenth century orphaned 16 year old, who may be lacking in knowledge or art, music, languages and history, but is an excellent shot with a gun, expert military tactician and highly successful stockbroker, who gets involved with City corruption and the Opium trade, but instead I thought that there can be no other example of the incredible creativity, depth and breadth of vision and the richness of a masterpiece of children's fiction. The story of Lyra and her daemon (the physical embodiment of her soul) and their adventure to the North to rescue the children stolen by the General Oblation Board on behalf of the Magisterium, the theocratic government system of Lyra's world. Drawing on Milton, Blake and often seen as a rebuttal to CS Lewis' Narnia series, I can't believe that anyone could read this book and believe that good children's literature is lacking in serious intent.

9. Maus by Art Spiegelmann is arguably one of the greatest graphic novels ever written. It is the story of Spiegelmann's father's survival of the Holocaust, with the Jews portrayed as mice and the Nazis as cats (the Katzies). Vladek's survival is interwoven with his son coming to terms with his family's tragic story, and his family's survivor's guilt. It shows unflinchingly that suffering extreme trauma does not make us a better, more likeable person; in fact the direct opposite.

10. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It has won the Hugo, Newbery and Carnegie awards. The story of Bod, the boy who survives the murder of his family and is brought up in a graveyard by the dead who live there. It is inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books, and to some extent is Gaiman's re-writing of them. Again, I hope to write on this novel at a later date. The book is illustrated by Dave McKean, the illustrator of Wolves in the Wall, which I wrote about here along with Coraline), and the illustrations are as worthwhile as the prose. Ultimately, it is a story about finding love, security and acceptance in a world where there are many dangers, but also the sad truth that to grow up, we must leave behind some of the security of childhood, however odd it must be.

I hope that on reading these books, Amis would have a little more respect for the power and creativity of good quality children's literature. Perhaps he and Jonathan Myerson could share the books?

Curiouser and curiouser

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) was not the first children's fantasy novel (that is generally held to be F. Paget's The Hope of the Katzenkopfs), but it is arguably the most influential. The story of Alice, falling asleep then following a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and pocket watch down a rabbit hole to a magical land full of bizarre creatures needs no introduction. However I think what is often lost on modern readers is Carroll's radical departure in tone from previous fantasy. Alison Lurie has characterised novels such as Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1863) and George Macdonald's The Light Princess (1864) as resembling "...a kind lady or gentleman delivering a delightfully disguised sermon".  Carroll's story is groundbreaking in that Alice is not being gently (or less than gently) chided for her faults by a creature resembling an adult, being shown the error of her ways and becoming a better and wiser girl. She is in general the voice of reason in a confusing world, who is protesting at the absurdity of adult authority figures such as the Duchess, the Queen of Hearts and the Caterpillar. The characters who do try to chide her are ridiculed for doing so, and at the end of the novel Alice defies them all: "Who cares for you?... Why, you're nothing but a pack of cards!"

The Alice books were extremely influential on children's novelists from the late nineteenth century onwards. Texts which obviously follow Carroll's pairing of adventures in fantasy landscapes with nonsense include GE Farrow's The Wallypug of Why (1898) and Mary Louisa Molesworth 's The Cuckoo Clock (1877), the latter combining the nonsense with a moral tale.  As I commented in an earlier post, China Mieville has noted Carroll's influence on his work.

One of the strangest may be Speaking Likenesses by Christina Rossetti (1875). It is three tales-within-tales; an aunt is telling the stories to her little nieces. The first is the story of Flora, whose discontent at her own birthday party leads her to a strange house, where there is another party going on. The guests are monstrous children whose bodies exhibit the unpleasant character traits that Flora's guests have been exhibiting (slipperiness, selfishness, prickliness, angularity and roughness). After some frightening and unpleasant experiences Flora finds her way home, where she finds that she has fallen asleep, apologises for her bad behaviour and is forgiven.

The final story is that of Maggie, who in contrast to Flora, who lives in a large house with extensive grounds, is the orphan grandaughter of Dame Margaret who keeps a toyshop. Just before Christmas Maggie goes on an errand for her grandmother, and slips and bangs her head on the way. She is teased and frightened by similar monstrous children, including a greedy boy whose only facial feature is a huge mouth, who demands the chocolate she is to deliver:

Unlike Flora, Maggie defies the terrors she faces, and delivers her basket. However she is not rewarded at the end of her journey, and, hungry, cold and frightened, she must walk home again. On her return journey she fills her basket with a freezing pigeon and an abandoned kitten and puppy, and is rewarded by knowing that she has carried out a good deed, and by tea and buttered toast with her grandmother.

This is a very strange little book (it is not in print; my copy is a facimile of the American edition, thankfully with Arthur Hughes' illustrations, from the University of Michigan Library), not least because of the insistance on bodily, emotional or social discomfort for the good of children's characters. As I have said, it is a tale within a tale; the framing device of an adult telling a child a story is not unusual, but there are regular interjections by the children, allowing the aunt to point a moral, or explain a word or phrase. Of course nineteenth century readers were still accustomed to read epistolary or multi modal novels with a strong narrative voice, such as Wuthering Heights, Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, or Samuel Richardson's Pamela. It is interesting to read not only in the light of Rossetti's poetry (the consumption and denial of food is reminiscent of her poem Goblin Market), but also in relation to Alice in Wonderland and other nineteenth century fantasy.

I was reminded of Marion St John Webb's Knock Three Times by a very dear friend recently, so I had to dig it out and re-read it. First published in 1917, it was illustrated by Margaret Tarrant, one of the best-known illustrators of the period.

Jack and Molly are twins. Their Aunt Phoebe always sends practical presents. Jack is delighted to get a box of paints. Molly is hoping for a silver bangle: instead she receives a rather ugly grey pincushion, shaped like a pumpkin. Molly is disappointed, but takes it up to her room at bed time, and, trying to convince herself that it will be useful, sticks a pin into it. That night she is awoken by a bump as the pumpkin pincushion rolls off the dressing table, falls to the floor and rolls out of the house. She and Jack follow it through the garden and into a wood, where they see it knock three times on the trunk of a tree. The tree trunk opens, leading to a forest in another world. The children learn that this world is known to its' inhabitants as the Possible World, who term Jack and Molly's world (our early 20th century world) as the Impossible World. The pumpkin is in fact the prison of an evil dwarf who has caused the King's daughter's death. Molly has accidentally broken the spell banishing it to the Impossible World, and she and Jack agree to help to return it there.

There are some Carrollian nonsensical aspects to the novel; for example Glan's explanation to Molly and Jack that they have played in the wood many times but never found their way to the Possible World because:

"There are two sides to every tree, just like there are two sides to every question. When you walk round a question, do you see both its sides? No. It is only when you go into a question that you see this side and that. Well then- when you only walked round that tree it stands to sense that you couldn't find yourself here.."

I found this an enjoyable re-read. It is eerie and exciting; the fantasy elements are well managed within the adventure, and the relationship between Molly and Jack is one of equality, which is interesting: even free-thinking feminist Edith Nesbit, a near contemporary, almost always had brothers as supervisors of their sisters. My copy is a Wordsworth Classics one, without Tarrant's illustrations, but you can get second hand copies the '30s fairly easily.

I was struck by some Alice touches (and indeed some of Rossetti's Goblin Market) in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film, Pan's Labyrinth. There is the underground world, only accessible to a little girl, the focus on doors, doorways, key holes and other entrances to this world that are often tricky to navigate. There is dangerous food and drink (also of course present in Goblin Market), and strange creatures, some benign and some murderous. Of course Ofelia is on a quest, unlike Alice, so I will return to the film at a more appropriate time, but the image that first made me think of Alice is, I think, strikingly reminiscent both of Tenniel's illustration and Alice Liddell, the "original" Alice:

Alice Liddell:

The Tao of Ged

Once there was a poor boy who was neglected by his family. Strange things started to happen around him, and he was taken in by a man with affinity with the natural world. His powers earned him a place at a school for wizards, a place of esoteric learning and strange rules, where he was teased and humiliated by a boy from a high born family. The boy was impetuous and hot tempered, and well aware of his poor home life, and as a result of using magic in an unauthorised way, called up a dreadful threat which only he could defeat.

 A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin was first published in the UK by Puffin books in 1971, as the rather psychadelic/ pre Raphaelite cover above suggests. This is the cover I remember as a child (I think this was my Mum's book; at any rate it didn't feature in my bedtime stories from my Dad. Maybe he thought it was too scary- but somehow had no compunction about reading the far more gory Hobbit!) I didn't read this as a child. I first read it a couple of years ago. It is a very different beast from the plot-driven fantasy of much popular modern children/ Young Adult fantasy such as Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl or the Lemony Snickett novels (and I don't mean this dismissively- these are all very enjoyable and often challenging reads). But Le Guin is writing in a different era, from a different stand point.

The novel was first published in 1968. This was an era of race riots, Black Power, Vietnam protests, USSR and China testing nuclear weapons, strikes and riots in Europe, hippies, "free love" and women's liberation. Ursula K Le Guin is a feminist, she is concerned with ecological issues and in Taoist philosophy, and these themes are often explored in her novels. Le Guin has stated that she feels that too often Science Fiction is about white men colonising space; she writes specifically from a feminist perspective in her later novels (see The Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu, the fantastically creepy sequels in the Earthsea novels). A huge innovation in her Earthsea novels is the diverse nature of her world; Ged and most other characters are described as having copper skin and black hair (although you wouldn't know it from the cover above or the recent television dramatisation.) Ged's friend Vetch is black. Le Guin drip-feeds this information about her characters throughout the first few chapters; a clever ruse given the year the novel was published in, and clearly sadly the producers of the television series didn't feel that staying true to Le Guin's vision would be popular either with viewers or with advertisers. See Le Guin's comments about this here.

I have stated that this novel is not plot driven, like much modern fantasy. Ged is on a quest, to defeat the evil that he releases due to his vanity and egotism. However, I believe that the novel’s key theme, the necessity for Ged to restore balance to Earthsea and thereby to learn moderation and self-control, are Taoist in origin. His growing maturity is demonstrated in his changing names: he is Duny as a child herding goats, then Sparrowhawk when he is with Ogion before going to school, but his true name is Ged, which must be guarded, for knowing a person’s true name gives the hearer power. (I know very little about American Indian beliefs, but Le Guin’s mother was an anthropologist who wrote a famous book about Ishi, a Yahi  man. I wonder if the idea of the power of names came from her mother’s research.) Ged must learn a dragon’s true name in order to gain power over it, and this section of the novel, where very little action occurs, but a great deal of character progression happens, can be related to the Taoist principle of inaction. Ged must learn to be in harmony with the universe.

A BBC audiodrama was recently repeated on BBC7. It is still available to listen again for a few days, and I strongly recommend it.

Christmas reading, Christmas joy

2010 is the 75th anniversary of a perennial Christmas favourite, The Box of Delights. It was first published in 1935, when author John Masefield was the Poet Laureate, as well as being a respected and popular novelist. (I have never read any of his novels, although I believe Sard Harker is still in print so I hope I'll get round to it some time...) The edition of The Box of Delights I have is Egmont, with colour illustrations by Quentin Blake, who was the first Children's Laureate, which seems appropriate. Blake chose The Box of Delights as one of his favourite children's books  in a poll of children's laureates to celebrate 10 years of the post.

The novel is the sequel to Masefield's 1927 children's novel, The Midnight Folk. In The Box of Delights, Kay Harker (the protagonist of both books) is now about 12, and is a public schoolboy. In the opening chapter he is on his way back from school for the Christmas holidays. He is going to Seekings, his home, and to Caroline Louisa, his governess. On the journey he is joined in his train carriage by a pair of shifty curates, who cheat him at a game of Hunt the Lady and whom he suspects of stealing his purse. He also meets an old Punch and Judy man, Cole Hawlings, and his dog, Barney. Cole gives him a mysterious message to pass on: "the Wolves are Running". At home, he learns that the Jones children are staying for the Christmas holiday- Peter, Jemima, Susan and surely one of the best girl characters in children's fiction, Maria: "I don't know where I've been," Maria said. "I've been scrobbled like a greenhorn. I knew what it would be, not taking a pistol. Well, I pity them if I ever get near them. They won't scrobble Maria Jones again."

Cole Hawlings is not just a Punch and Judy man. At Seekings, he does real magic for the children, and gives Kay his Box of Delights, with which he can go Swift, go Small or go into the past. Kay and the Jones children have some wonderful adventures, including rescuing Caroline Louisa, Cole and the clergy and choir of the Cathedral, who are being held to ransom by the burgling gang led by the wizard Abner Brown, now married to Kay's former governess Sylvia Daisy Pouncer (his adventures leading to their downfall are told in The Midnight Folk).

This is a wonderful book, to be read aloud a chapter a night to listeners in pyjamas drinking hot chocolate before bed, on the twelve days before Christmas Eve. I should think that anyone over 7 would love it. It doesn't matter if you haven't read The Midnight Folk, as the story stands alone. I have only one quibble- the "it was all a dream" ending. The Midnight Folk was content to have magic as the logic behind the talking toys, cats, foxes, witches and Kay's ancestors from the past helping him to find treasure. However, I still love this book, 35 years after my dad first read it to me. I've even ordered the DVD of the BBC series which readers of a certain age might remember, and I am hoping that it arrives before all the snow melts!