![]() ![]() My favourite character is Simon, who lives a gloriously self-sufficient life in the woods and raises geese. But Bonnie is a good-hearted child, and anyway it’s not long before all this is snatched away from her, in a reversal of fortune and test of character that follows one of the best traditions of children’s literature. Sylvia lives in great poverty with her old aunt in a Park Lane attic, while in isolated Willoughby Chase her cousin Bonnie has everything a child could wish for, including her own toyroom with a dolls-house large enough to get inside and with real canaries nesting in the roof. There are also wonderful contrasts: freezing cold and warmth, hunger and hearty food, terror and comfort. It’s through this tunnel that the hungry European wolves come tearing in search of food! Joan Aiken’s 19 th century parallel universe revels in Victorian invention – according to her the Channel Tunnel, far from a 1980s vanity project, was really built in the early 1800s. It’s full of my favourite ingredients for a period adventure: a happy quota of orphans and absent parents, an evil governess, resourceful children and wily adults, and tons of snow. ![]() I read it again recently and the magic is still there. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. ![]()
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