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Magical Classics: 'The Lord Fish' by Walter de la Mare
I don’t remember when I first read this wonderful long short story – 46 pages long in my Faber edition – but it must have been a long time ago. And it’s haunted me ever since. Of course, de la Mare...
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Magical Classics: "Puck of Pook's Hill" by Rudyard Kipling
John Dickinson on the midsummer magic of Kipling's children's classicTwo children, Dan and Una, perform a scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream three times on midsummer eve, in a fairy ring under the...
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Magical Classics: The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
Is this a fantasy? Maybe not: there's no actual magic as such. Who cares? No apologies! This book IS a Magical Classic. Forget the Disney version (enjoyable as that was). The real book is so much...
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Magical Classics: 'Harding's Luck' by E Nesbit
Delia Sherman on a favourite time-travelling hero It’s fair to say that Harding’s Luck (1923) is not one of E. Nesbit’s better known titles, so I was delighted when Delia Sherman chose it as her...
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Heroines
Some time ago, out of interest, I pulled a list of ‘Children’s Classics’ off Wikipedia. There were 66 titles, and Aesop’s Fables headed the list with William Caxton’s edition of 1484. Apart from a...
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How To Develop A Story (by Lewis Carroll)
This is something I've always wanted to share with you. It's a piece called 'Photography Extraordinary' written by Lewis Carroll for one of the home-made family newspapers he wrote and illustrated,...
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The Girl Who Followed the North Star
It is a northern land, a hard place where the trees bend always to a cold, flowing wind. At night the north star flashes and beckons, a jewelled finger. The skies turn like a dial, so big and...
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In The Library of Imaginary Books
Deep in the enclaves of Unseen University (in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, in case anyone reading this doesn’t already know) is the University Library, where the presence of so many books has...
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Faerie cities
This wonderful little city stands as if sprung from the soil, in a neighbour's garden. It reminds me of the medieval French city of Carcassonne, whose name was used by Lord Dunsany for a faerie city in...
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Perilous seas in faerie lands forlorn
In this fabulous picture, Arthur Rackham depicts the beauty, vastness and terror of the sea as a white storm-goddess. There's a shipwreck behind her, and before her, dwarfed on the strand, is a...
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Sea Lion Woman: A Selkie Story for a New Millennium - by Laura Marjorie Miller
Harbor seal at Seal beach, La Jolla, California. © Ralph Pace I am delighted to welcome Laura Marjorie Miller to the blog. Laura writes about travel, Yoga, magic, myth, fairy tales, photography, marine...
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"Happily Ever After"
Oral storytelling necessitates a framework. Anyone who’s tried singing or storytelling or in any way performing, for that’s what it is, in a crowded space, knows that you have to call for attention...
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Magical Classics: "A Necklace of Raindrops" by Joan Aiken
Jo Cotterill reflects on the enduring magic of Joan Aiken's marvellous fairytales.I don’t know how old I was when I read A Necklace of Raindrops. I only know that it caused a tremendous longing in my...
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Review: PUREHEART by Cassandra Golds
This has to be the most heartbreakingly beautiful book I have read in years. It begins with a reunion. Soon after attending her grandmother’s funeral, a young girl, Deirdre, looks out of the window...
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Magical Classics: ROOM 13 by Robert Swindells
When vampires were vampires! Sally Nicholls, and the delights of being scared out of your wits. There was one in the corner of every classroom. A bookcase on wheels, with shelves on either side, filled...
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Magical Classics: "The King of Ireland's Son" by Padraic Colum
"Then he came from where he was hiding and gave her the swanskin"John Patrick Pazdziora on an enchanting Irish classic. The affair began, as so many do, at a conference. I was just seventeen, and—no,...
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Review: ICEFALL by Gillian Philip
So here is it at last – the fourth and final volume of Gillian Philip’s YA/adult fantasy series ‘REBEL ANGELS’, which began with the electrifying ‘FIREBRAND’ and was followed by ‘BLOODSTONE’ and...
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The Ballad of Mulan
I've always liked Arthur Waley's translations of Chinese literature and poetry, and came across this recently in an old edition I found in a second-hand bookshop. The rough ballad style he has chosen...
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Self-created fantasy worlds
Many children and teenagers develop their own private fantasy worlds. I had one. Age nine, I was the imaginary leader of the red horses of the sunset clouds... my name: ‘Red-Gold’. My friend was the...
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The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry
An airthlie nourrice sits and sings,And aye she sings, Ba lily wean!Little ken I my bairnis fatherFar less the land that he staps in.So begins the old ballad of 'The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry'. As...
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