Rather Good - an excellent Dido!
06.03.2026 15:23
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Rather Good - an excellent Dido!
New Book, The New Flesh, Tales of shapeshifters with some strangely patterned skins of fruits and forest...
Need a little distraction? Tales of the Weird...Shapeshifter stories coming soon from @britishlibrary.bsky.social drawn from the wildest imaginations of writers from Mary Shelley to Joan Aiken...who comes up with the comforting idea tha Wolves make the Best Fathers...
Thanks! I should add that link to the Joan Aiken page...🎥
Found a few treasures including Black Hearts in Battersea
youtube.com/@theworldofj...
😍
The lovely @frankcottrellboyce.bsky.social picks a favourite for World Book Day...Joan Aiken & Jan Pienkowski created a lasting classic in The Kingdom Under the Sea...even when it's been loved to bits...🤩
www.joanaiken.com/book_categor...
She's there to the end...⚓
Oh yes!
Croopus, it's the first of March..time to celebrate Dido Twite day again! Have you met Joan Aiken's enduring heroine? If not read on and make a friend for life...always there when you need her.
joanaiken.wordpress.com/2026/02/28/c...
What is it with Joan Aiken and wolves...? Every good story has a wolf...
It's a great read aloud...
What a great School Library! Huzzah!!!
Mortimer the Raven with a bouquet of Daffs for Arabel, his partner in crime...
One of the greatest love stories, a pair who were destined to meet among spilt milk and trampled lettuce...it's Arabel 7 Mortimer of course, Joan Aiken's enduring pair...
Read how they first met:
joanaiken.wordpress.com/2026/02/13/a...
... I'm afraid that's probably a life's work for someone, if not Joan Aiken herself...
So sad to hear we have lost @neilphilipmyth.bsky.social an expert and champion of the world of children's lit. introducing myths and stories for all...His Joan Aiken Top Ten is a treasure - if you've never discovered her, start here:
More than ever we need stories to show us how things worked out before, what we can do about it, and how to share hope for the future...'Hold together for the future's sake...'
joanaiken.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/j...
Most are still in print, or EBook but less well known in the US than they deserve to be, timeless and wonderful...
...the best in fact..! Joan Aiken was once celebrated as 'the greatest children's writer you have probably never read...'
But it's not too late, and she wrote for adults too ..
...the last of the 'Wolves Chronicles' series, written just before she died, so as she says, rather a short book...Find them all here:
www.joanaiken.com/book_categor...
England in the olden days...except it was all made up by Joan Aiken...
In the USA? Want to get away for a while...? Wonderful escapism in Joan Aiken stories on sale this week...
openroadmedia.com/ebook/the-la...
Stranger things we would welcome...and quieter times...a Joan Aiken world?
There was also wild inconsistency & lots of editorial confusion over The Serial Garden! Her artistic licence allowed a lot of elasticity in family ages, and even historical & geographical settings, as with Mortimer she loved throwing in every social novelty...but no witches in the Jones family...
Aaaah, there's a thought! They did accumulate in the same way, from the first collections where the mother/son 'lazy jack' relationship began with a joke about a poisoned toothbrush...to later years when hippy teenager becomes surprising family asset?
...some of Joan Aiken's very best!
Joan Aiken and Quentin Blake...Nevermore!
Aah thanks! Do pass on the word, she's such a great writer, I'm always trying to introduce her to new readers!
Books for all ages...
www.joanaiken.com/books/
...as were her own ancestors!
Time to take down the decorations, and put them out for the birds..? But the books go on nourishing the family, celebrate the Year of Reading with these delights from Joan Aiken...
www.joanaiken.com/arabel-and-m...
Joan Aiken wanted to pass on the Joy she found from reading in her own childhood, and recreate the kind of stories that weren't written any more...
Remembering Joan Aiken and the stories about her haunted house...some of them she wrote herself...
joanaiken.wordpress.com/2026/01/03/r...