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In this collection of eight original stories, Joan Aiken takes us on a journey to a land where all the magical things that only seem to happen in dreams really happen.
The stories are: Tale of a one-way street, The lions, Bridget's hat, The goodbye song, The queen of the moon, Clean sheets, The alarm cock (not clock!) and The tractor, the duck and the drum. The illustrations are all by Jan Pienkowski. Image above from THE ALARM COCK
Once there was a shop with a sign over the door that said, VINE, WOLF, AND PARROTT, HELPERS. If you opened the door and went in, you saw the Vine right away, for it grew out of the floor and up the walls of the little shop, so the whole room was lined with leaves, and clusters of flowers hung from the ceiling.... A sign over the counter said, No fee unless satisfied. Payment in kind Accepted. We help you with all your problems!
Image from TALE OF A ONE-WAY STREET
They saw a great forest of pipes, each pipe mended in a different way. They saw streams and fountains of letters and numbers sparkling in the purple rays of the sun, making hundreds and thousands of different words, giving the answers to any number of sums...
Image from THE LIONS
At each corner of the little park, facing inwards so that they could see on another comfortably, crouched four stone lions. One had moss growing on his tail. One had a swallow's nest of straw built between his ears. One had a broken paw, where a boy had thrown a brick. And somebody had written I LOVE FRANK on the fourth lion ...
Image from BRIDGET'S HAT
"Now," he said. "Pay careful attention. The diamond that fastens your right-hand boot is a very old and precious one; it is called the Eye of the Desert, and has the power to take you wherever you want to go, if you step out with your right foot first, and wish at the same time. Is that clear?
A second image from BRIDGET'S HAT
Image from THE GOODBYE SONG
But one night, out of the depths of her worry, she dreamed a song, and the next day, when she woke up, she remembered the words of it, and the tune. These were the words:
Road, river, mountain, sea,
Bring my boys safe to me
Earth, air sun, moon,
Bring my sons back soon
Luck, chance, wish, will
Keep them safe from all ill.
Black and white image from BRIDGET'S HAT
Image from THE QUEEN OF THE MOON
Tansy walked along the side of the field till she came to a little stream. She built a dam out of sticks and mud. Then she built an island out of stones, and put smaller stones and earth on top. Over the earth she laid green moss, and then she picked moon daisies and stuck them into the moss. They looked as if they were growing...
Image from THE TRACTOR, THE DUCK AND THE DRUM
So Euan wrote to his Aunt Bertha: Dere Ant Birthday I shd bee verry great full if u cd send mee a track tor I can ride on wat goes chug chug chug & a drum I can play on wat goes rub a dub dub & a duk to swim in my barf wat goes quak quak quak.
Image from CLEAN SHEETS
So Gus had to go to bed, but he took the leaf with him. And lying in bed, holding the leaf scrunched up in his hand, he remembered floating down the Colorado river in a canoe past great golden cliffs. He remembered scoring the winning goal in an ice-hockey match. He remembered getting into the pilot's seat of a small aeroplane he had been given. Then he went to sleep ...
I’m so happy I stumbled across this beautifully illustrated book in a local charity shop. I love the intense colours and the silhouettes by Jan Pienkowski, plus the stories are fun and imaginative. This from the introduction:
What very strange creatures you are apt to meet if you dare to go the wrong way up a one-way street. What splendid things you can remember, even if they didn't happen (like the zebra you got for your birthday or all the doughnuts in the world which you ate without being sick), if you hold the leaf of a memory tree in the palm of your hand. What a peculiar muddle your presents can get into when your birthday cake is baked with a wishing spoon, and what magical rewards come your way if you save the king of grasshoppers from drowning in your porridge.
Tale of a one-way streetJoan Aiken with pictures by Jan Pienkowski. Published by Jonathan Cape Ltd. 1978~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m going to leave you with a funny story as told by our daughter in law Karen. She is talking about her youngest daughter (our granddaughter) Lilly.
... Lilly decided to help me with the washing ... after loading the washing machine I said ok now shut the door like you are really cross, meaning slam it shut … as she slammed the door she yelled "I am sick of this".
Tada!! Thank you Lilly ... please take a bow!
What if you could have ‘All You’ve Ever Wanted‘? In Joan Aiken’s fertile imagination this is exactly the sort of wish that could go wildly wrong; in fact she had such fun with the idea that it led to a collection of stories, this particular one providing the title of her first book, published nearly […]
What if you could have ‘All You’ve Ever Wanted‘? In Joan Aiken’s fertile imagination this is exactly the sort of wish that could go wildly wrong; in fact she had such fun with the idea that it led to a collection of stories, this particular one providing the title of her first book, published nearly […]
Joan Aiken produced some beautiful pastel drawings while mulling over her plots, you can see some of them on the website, but this little doodle on the back of an envelope suggests a rather different, very un-fertile state of mind, brought about by the distractions and pressures of daily life (Gas in barn? […]
It is not surprising that Dido Twite is such an enduring heroine, her very survival was a piece of luck, or perhaps was even engendered by her own strongest character trait – she never gave up hope. Joan Aiken has admitted that she had imagined Dido drowning at the end of Black Hearts […]
The delightful Charles Schlessiger of Brandt & Hochman, who is celebrating his 8Oth Birthday on July 25th (hopefully not at the office!) has been Joan Aiken’s agent for 50 years. But as Lewis Nichols noted in the New York Times in 1963, in an article accompanied by this comic cartoon – she was not the […]
Joan Aiken writing at her very best was a perfect companion. Well travelled, cultured, with a wealth of personal experience, and the ability not just to tell a gripping story, but to draw the reader in to the very process of writing. What she loved was to hold her audience in a […]
What if you could have ‘All You’ve Ever Wanted‘? Joan Aiken liked to imagine just this sort of dangerous wish going horribly wrong, and it became the title story of her first book. The wishes in question are not made by her sensible heroine, the ill-starred Matilda, an orphan of course, who is brought […]
It would be perfect if Joan herself were here to write this blog – with her many years of experience from her own early days of struggle and rejection slips, with her wide reading and appreciation of all kinds of life and literature, and her great sympathy for fellow writers, she would have had […]
Creating her own period of alternate history gave Joan Aiken the freedom to exercise her endless imagination, but also provided her with the opportunity to use a variety of stored information from her wide ranging reading and her life-long fascination with all kinds of study. These elements, combined with an absolutely riotous ear for dialogue […]
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 9/26/2012
Blog:
A Fuse #8 Production
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Let’s start off with the me stuff since it’s quick. First and foremost, if you’ve thought to yourself, “Boy, I’d really like to watch Betsy talk about the Core Curriculum and then mention all the 2012 nonfiction books for kids she really likes and why they stand out,” you are in SUCH luck. The Highlights Foundation is hosting the Books That Rise Above workshop. Attend and you’ll hear folks like Patti Lee Gauch, Linda Sue Park, Leonard Marcus, Deborah Heiligman, and an alliterative librarian/blogger. And yes, I do know all that Core Curriculum stuff now. And boy, it’s a doozy.
- Speaking of Patti Lee Gauch and myself, the great editor visited NYPL the other day and spoke at my Children’s Literary Salon. SLJ covered the event as well. And the woman, if I do say so myself, was an undeniable hit.
- Finally, there’s a lovely Joan Aiken event coming up celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I’m going to be a part of it (you can see me mentioned here as the “& more”. Very very exciting stuff.
- “So, to introduce 3- to 6-year-olds to the notion that there’s an inevitability to death . . . “ Is there anything better than a good Marjorie Ingalls Tablet piece? With Yom Kippur present and accounted for I’m grateful for Ms. Ingalls article on introducing kids to death with books, as mentioned in her piece Don’t Fear the Reaper. As for Rosh Hashanah and atonement, check out her Teaching Kids to Apologize. You can tell she doesn’t write her own titles for her written pieces, can’t you?
- The Caldecott blog Calling Caldecott is up and running yet again, which is fantastic. I couldn’t be more pleased to see them discussing works of photography as well. Does my creaky old photography loving heart good, it does. Plus Robin Smith gets extra points for ending her post with, “I hope the committee will step gently out of the box and consider this one.” BOOM! That’s how you do it, folks!
Photography is no stranger to designer Chad Beckerman. It was through his site Mishaps and Adventures that I learned about Abrams cool new abecedarian fun. To quote: “We over here at ABRAMS KIDS have started a campaign on Instagram and Twitter called A for ABRAMS ( #aforabrams ) We are collecting A’s that are artful, well designed, or just plain cool from anywhere that you might find them. The idea is whenever you happen to see one of these artful A’s out and about you can join us by hash tagging your A #aforabrams as well as including our Instagram or twitter handle @abramskids or @abramsbooks. Have some fun and we hope you all get to see the world around you a little better.” Head on over to Chad’s blog to see a whole smattering of fine and fancy A’s.
- Now let’s see what those crazy Antiquarians are up to. I admit that I don’t make it out to Antiquarian events as often as I’d like. That’s why it pleases me to see the following: “The bicentennial exhibition, ‘In Pursuit of a Vision,’ consisting of 150 items from the collections of the American Antiquarian Society (including some 35 children’s books) is now on display at the Grolier Club, 47 E. 60th St., New York. The exhibition is free and open to the public Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. until November 17, with the exception of Columbus Day, Oct. 8.” The exhibition was reviewed in the Sept. 12 edition of the New York Times and the American children’s books on display range from James Janeway’s Token for Children (1700) to the McLoughlin Bros. picture books and artwork produced in the late nineteenth century.
- Who are Britain’s Top Ten Children’s Literature Superstars? No, this isn’t a reality show competition (images of Philip Pullman balancing a pie plate on his chin suddenly pop uninvited into my head). The Independent has presented such a list and we are free to act very American and say, “Who is that?” Many is the Yank who would say those words when confronted with Jacqueline Wilson, Alan Garner, and Enid Blyton (Famous Five, famous schmive). Tolkien, Pratchett, and Gaiman need not apply apparently. Zoe Toft wondered who the American Top Ten Children’s Literature Superstars would be. I’m sure we all have our own lists, but I guess I’d have to go with Maurice Sendak, Eric Carle, E.B. White, Madeleine L’Engle . . . um . . . help me out here, people. Thanks to Playing By the Book for the link.
- Daily Image:
Until Alison Morris introduced them to me, I was unaware of the delight that was the Little Free Library system. You can read the New York Times article about them here. Basically they’re these adorable little boxes that you can fill with free books for folks to take. So for those of you with too many galleys in a given year, voila! Your solution. Here are some particularly cute ones (I like the prominent Going Bovine in the first):
Thanks to Alison Morris for the links!
#57 The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken (1962)
37 points
Long before there was Lemony Snicket! - Amy Sears
I left this off my last list and have been kicking myself ever since. This was one of my favorite books as a child. Miss Slighcarp gave me the shivers! You just knew she was plotting something horrible as Bonnie’s cheerful parents left the children in her custody, and sure enough, she was. The wolves in the snow only add to the terror, and then we reach the workhouse where Bonnie and Sylvia manage to survive and deal with bullies, but only just. Simon the gooseboy with his little donkey makes a terrific ally, until at last the dastardly governess gets her comeuppance. What could be better than a fast-paced Dickensian adventure? – Kate Coombs
As a child I avoided The Wolves of Willoughby Chase for precisely the wrong reasons. Laughable reasons even. When I was young, girls were constantly falling for animal books. Cutesy dolphins. Adorable horses. And sweet little wolves. Me? I avoided such books like the plague. Ridiculously so, to the point where I looked at the image of the slathering Edward Gorey hellhounds on the cover of this book and honestly thought to myself “wolves = girly = bad.” I never said I was a bright child. Clearly I would have adored this book back in the day. One can only hope that there are brighter boys and girls out there willing to give a dark little title like this one a fair shake.
The plot according to AllReaders.com reads, “Soon after orphan Sylvia comes to live with her wealthy relatives, her aunt and uncle leave on an extended trip, leaving Sylvia and her spirited cousin Bonnie in the care of their governess, Miss Slighcarp. Bonnie’s parents are reported dead in a shipwreck, and Miss Slighcarp turns on her young charges, firing the household staff and sending the cousins away to an orphanage. Together, Bonnie and Sylvia must escape and try to reclaim their home.”
In a profile of Ms. Aiken from a November 1989 edition of Language Arts, it says that “Working at Argosy magazine for six years to support her family, Aiken learned the practicalities of professional writing. She then moved to the J. Walter Thompson London office and was a copywriter for a year when success with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase finally encouraged her to try full-time writing and she succeeded in making the transition.”
In the publication British Children’s Authors, Joan Aiken goes into a little more detail. “The first two chapters of Willoughby Chase were written when both my children were tiny, and then the book had to be put aside for almost ten years. By this time the children were much bigger, and I read the chapters aloud to them as I wrote. They made a lot of very useful comments and criticisms as we went along.”
She also makes no bones about her primary influence. “I think I got the idea for writing melodrama for boys and girls because when I was young, I had a great deal of Dickens read aloud to me. Of course, he is the prime example of this kind of melodrama. I think this had a very strong influence on my writing. The historical period of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and the others is imaginary, although the trappings are all fairly genuine English nineteenth-century ones. This again, I think, was heavily influenced by Dickens. . . . The names of my characters have a strong connection with Dickens. Miss Slighcarp and Mr. Gripe, for example–this is the kind of name Dickens uses a great deal. A lot of my names, in fact,
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By:
Lucy Coats,
on 4/7/2009
Blog:
An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
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Liz Kessler,
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Joan Aiken,
Barney Harwood,
Go4It,
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Next month marks the demise of
Go4It, BBC Radio 4's specialist children's book review programme. Barney Harwood, the presenter, does a brilliant job, there are some great stories being read (currently
Liz Kessler's
The Tail of Emily Windsnap and
Julia Donaldson's The Giants and the Joneses feature), some newsworthy topics being discussed (the Arctic and global warming). So why is it being axed? We are told that the audience is made up of the over-50's, and that therefore the 'target market' is not being reached. There are simply not enough listeners 'of the right sort'. If it doesn't work, and, for the present, leaving aside the fact that a) there are now many mothers who, having had babies in their 40's, are now well into their half-century and b) that the people who actually buy children's books for the 'target market' are generally adults, surely the BBC should be thinking about how to
make it work. Books are an important part of the government's literacy strategy, and as a publicly funded body, the BBC should therefore be helping to promote books and providing their licence payers and their future licence payers with information on the subject.
But there is a problem. The weekly audience of 4-14 year olds on BBC Radio 7 is only 25,000--a small minority in the grand audio scheme of things. Children's radio programming will continue there--in the CBeebies 5-7am slot, which could be seen as a boon for early risers or, more negatively a graveyard, and books will continue to be featured on
Big Toe. Radio 4 will feature Joan Aiken's
Black Hearts in Battersea, Roald Dahl's
Matilda, Erich Kästner's
Emil and the Detectives and
The Wizard of Oz at Christmas
. But is it enough? Are the BBC thinking about what children really want, and more importantly how to provide it in a form they want?
For someone such as myself, brought up on a diet of Listen with Mother, listening to the radio is easy and natural. But today's children have so much going on that to sit down for a whole half hour and listen to a programme is, quite simply, an alien concept. A snatch of music here, five minutes on an i-pod there, gaming, downloads--the technology today's children are familiar with is all about fast and furious action. If books on the radio are ever going to work, they must be presented as cool and relevant. In the case of the Radio 4 choices, the books mentioned above are all wonderful classics. But why not introduce younger listeners to some modern classics in the making--by living authors who could be interviewed, could blog, could podcast--all things which kids can understand. Tapping into the 'celebrity culture' will be abhorrent to some readers here--and I'm not too keen on it myself--but if presenting books in this way hooks in more readers then why not? If the BBC wants books to work for those under 16, they must create a buzz about them--find different ways to use the technology which is out there. Don't tell me that there aren't the readers who are hungry for the next big reads, let alone the next good reads--Harry Potter and the current Twilight craze prove that there are. The radio is already linked to the computer--we just need some creative thinking to convince young listeners that books are right up there with the latest pop download. Answers on a postcard to Mark Damazer at the BBC, please.
Can’t wait to read this one. I’ve just started the Felix Brooke series, so I’m deep in 19th century Europe for now.
Have ‘All But a Few’ on my shelves, which I haven’t read since the 70s, but I do remember this delightful premise — the opposite of the dilemma that the very young Sleeping Beauty faced but no less disastrous!