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Good News! And Bad News -
Please don't worry though! Actually the bad news isn't so bad. I'm about to take a break from this blog, but I fully intend to be back here some time in the autumn with a new selection of wonderful...
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Magical Rooms in Children's Fiction
Maria's room - C. Walter Hodges, with thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/squatbetty/6858141610/When I was about twelve, my brother and I had a den in an unused outbuilding belonging to the house we...
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Witches in Children's Literature
Macbeth: How now, you secret, black and midnight hags? What is’t you do?Witches: A deed without a name.“Witch” is not a neutral word. You can have good wizards or bad wizards, it seems, and when you...
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Witches: Queens and Crones and Little Girls
The witches from children’s fiction who appeared in my last post were all wicked. But their authors wrote about them with humour, and a relish for the sheer range of social possibilities open to a...
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Good Witches
In this third post about witches, I’m considering some children’s books in which the characters are recognisably witches, but good rather than evil. All of these examples are modern. I’m not sure I...
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Briar Rose - or 'Time Be Stopped'
Schooldays. I’m about eight years old, I have my brown school reader in my hand, and I’m about to knock on the headmistress’s door. Everyone in the school has to go and read to her once a week - a...
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The Ghost that spoke Gaelic
'An Incident at the Battle of Culloden' by David Morier, oil on canvas.Scotland, 1749, just four years after the failed Jacobite rising and the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the clans at the...
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New Fairytales!
This is the rather lovely cover of 'New Fairytales: Essays & Stories', a gorgeous book of poems, critical essays and new fairy stories - one of which, 'Gnomes', is mine. Though is it really a...
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Other Worlds
This is the first of three posts about other worlds in children’s and YA fiction – about fantasy worlds; the sort of magical countries many children invent for themselves as refuges and playgrounds for...
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Other Worlds (2)
Earthsea, Narnia, Middle Earth – the three classic fantasy worlds I talked about last week – are distinctive places. Most children – most people you meet – will have a pretty clear picture of at least...
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Other Worlds (3)
My first of these three posts discussed the three classic fantasy worlds I grew up reading and loving: Narnia, Middle Earth and Earthsea. In my second, last week, I talked about a variety of more...
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Twisted Winter
I’m not afraid of the dark. It’s streetlights I don’t like, especially those glaring orange sodium lights. Have you noticed how strange they make people look, on the street at night? How their faces go...
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What is YA fiction?
Here, in order from the left, are Delia Sherman, Susan Cooper, Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman (at the back, heading towards his seat), Will Hill and Holly Black, taking part in a panel at the World Fantasy...
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Ideas come from Looking Glass Land
I was sitting in my upstairs writing-room (the spare bedroom) when I saw one of our cats trot purposefully down my opposite neighbour’s drive and disappear into the hedge.I found myself wondering what...
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The Magical World of Narnia
This is the text of an address I gave at the Adderbury Literary Festival on Friday November 22nd, to mark the 50th anniversary of CS Lewis's death.When I was a little girl living near Ilkley in...
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Magical Classics: "The Three Royal Monkeys" by Walter de la Mare
As far as I'm aware, this is Walter de la Mare’s only full length book for children. Published in 1910, its original title ‘The Three Mullar-Mulgars’ was - presumably - so unhelpfully baffling even by...
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Magical Classics: 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' by Joan Aiken
Katy Moran explores Joan Aiken's disturbing yet entrancing classic A grand house, a pack of hungry wolves and two brave and resourceful girls – this is the opening to one of the most magnificent...
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Magical Classics: 'The Last of the Dragons' by A. de Quincey
Lucy Coats and the mysterious A. de Quincey's vegetarian dragon:In Book IX of the History of Animals, Aristotle states: "When the draco has eaten much fruit, it seeks the juice of the bitter...
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Magical Classic: 'The Thirteen Clocks' by James Thurber
Guggle and Zatch: An Appreciation, by Jane YolenIf those words—guggle and zatch—resonate for you, I don’t have to spell out the delicious power of one of my favorite (short) magical books. You already...
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Magical Classics: 'The Exploits of Moomipappa' by Tove Jansson
Catherine Butler enjoys the wisdom, joy and occasional melancholy of the gentle MoominsThe Exploits of Moominpappa (1952)I came rather late to the Moomins, reading Tove Jansson’s books for the first...
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