When ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
littlerhymes and I were slogging through A Place of Greater Safety, I complainted that I wanted to read something lighter and more fun. “What about The Wolves of Willoughby Chase?” suggested littlerhymes.
I have long meant to read Joan Aiken, so I replied, “Sure!”
Reader, this was an excellent choice. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase IS light and fun! It takes place in an alternate universe England where King James II was never driven from the throne, so in 1832 England is still ruled by the Stuarts, who have built a tunnel under the English channel through which many wild and savage wolves have emigrated to England. (littlerhymes’ copy had a note explaining this backstory. Mine did not.)
Does this exactly make sense? No. Does Joan Aiken care if this exactly makes sense? Also no. Joan Aiken wants wolves and Joan Aiken is going to have wolves and Joan Aiken’s wolves fling themselves at train windows to try to attack the passengers inside and that’s all there is to it.
Our heroines are Bonnie Green, sole daughter of Sir Willoughby the lord of Willoughby Chase, and her cousin Sylvia Green, who is coming to visit for the first time as Sir Willoughby and his wife travel to warmer climes in the hope that Mrs. Green will regain her health. Bonnie and Sylvia are instant best friends, which is fortunate, as they have been left in the charge of their distant cousin the wicked Miss Slighcarp, who soon announces that Bonnie’s parents have perished at sea and sends the girls away to an evil orphanage!
“YES I LOVE AN EVIL ORPHANAGE!” I yelled, and this orphanage is indeed MOST satisfactorily evil. The children are starved! forced to work! shiver all night under inadequate blankets! and the headmistress Mrs. Brisket (love these names) bribes them to inform on each other with slivers of cheese from a basket.
Fortunately Bonnie and Sylvia soon escape with the help of Bonnie’s friend the goose boy Simon. They spend two months driving the geese to London to be sold! (Fortunately all the wolves have migrated north at this point with the coming of spring. Well, fortunately for the children,littlerhymes and I agreed we would have enjoyed more wolf action.)
Eventually good is rewarded and evil punished. A most satisfactory children’s book of the old-fashioned sort.
littlerhymes and I have decided to read at least the first five, plus Midnight is a Place (which I am perhaps less reliably informed also features an Evil Orphanage?), and perhaps more if the spirit moves us. I am reliably informed that this book is the most normal of the entire Wolves of Willoughby Chase series, so I am looking forward to reporting back as things get weirder.
littlerhymes and I were slogging through A Place of Greater Safety, I complainted that I wanted to read something lighter and more fun. “What about The Wolves of Willoughby Chase?” suggested littlerhymes.I have long meant to read Joan Aiken, so I replied, “Sure!”
Reader, this was an excellent choice. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase IS light and fun! It takes place in an alternate universe England where King James II was never driven from the throne, so in 1832 England is still ruled by the Stuarts, who have built a tunnel under the English channel through which many wild and savage wolves have emigrated to England. (
littlerhymes’ copy had a note explaining this backstory. Mine did not.)Does this exactly make sense? No. Does Joan Aiken care if this exactly makes sense? Also no. Joan Aiken wants wolves and Joan Aiken is going to have wolves and Joan Aiken’s wolves fling themselves at train windows to try to attack the passengers inside and that’s all there is to it.
Our heroines are Bonnie Green, sole daughter of Sir Willoughby the lord of Willoughby Chase, and her cousin Sylvia Green, who is coming to visit for the first time as Sir Willoughby and his wife travel to warmer climes in the hope that Mrs. Green will regain her health. Bonnie and Sylvia are instant best friends, which is fortunate, as they have been left in the charge of their distant cousin the wicked Miss Slighcarp, who soon announces that Bonnie’s parents have perished at sea and sends the girls away to an evil orphanage!
“YES I LOVE AN EVIL ORPHANAGE!” I yelled, and this orphanage is indeed MOST satisfactorily evil. The children are starved! forced to work! shiver all night under inadequate blankets! and the headmistress Mrs. Brisket (love these names) bribes them to inform on each other with slivers of cheese from a basket.
Fortunately Bonnie and Sylvia soon escape with the help of Bonnie’s friend the goose boy Simon. They spend two months driving the geese to London to be sold! (Fortunately all the wolves have migrated north at this point with the coming of spring. Well, fortunately for the children,
littlerhymes and I agreed we would have enjoyed more wolf action.) Eventually good is rewarded and evil punished. A most satisfactory children’s book of the old-fashioned sort.
littlerhymes and I have decided to read at least the first five, plus Midnight is a Place (which I am perhaps less reliably informed also features an Evil Orphanage?), and perhaps more if the spirit moves us. I am reliably informed that this book is the most normal of the entire Wolves of Willoughby Chase series, so I am looking forward to reporting back as things get weirder.
