I was talking to a Wiccan recently, and fervently recommending (as I often do) Margaret Mahy's The Changeover to her, a book I love for itself, but also regard - unless you know different? - as the very first YA supernatural romance. I would like to say, "Without The Changeover, no Buffy, Twilight, etc.", but in fact, despite its chronological ( Read more... )

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I was contacted by email last night by someone from Radio 4's Today programme, inviting me to come on this morning and talk about Roald Dahl "origin" stories - prompted of course by the new film Wonka, released in the UK today ( Read more... )

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If you're like me, the only things you know about the Sargasso Sea are that it lends its name to a Jean Rhys novel and has something to do with the life-cycle of the eel. You may have wondered whether there was any connection between the two facts ( Read more... )

Well, no one's been asking my opinion of the latest Roald Dahl controversy, so here it is. Or rather, here they are, for I have several.

First, context. Here's a link to the original Telegraph article, which lists all the emendations. Let's just acknowledge that the whole issue has been very consciously taken up by the Tory press as a culture-war ( Read more... )

Yesterday I drove Hiroko two hours south of Bristol, to Agatha Christie's holiday home, Greenway, a Georgian villa sitting very picturesquely on a hill near the mouth of the River Dart. It's a rather lovely place, and with its tennis courts, fernery, croquet lawn, boathouse, etc., it does feel as it one has stepped into the pages of a Christie ( Read more... )

Sorry to drop in so briefly after so long an absence (which has included Covid and a lot of marking, just so you don't feel left out), but you may perhaps be interested to know that I gave this webinar on Studio Ghibli and British Children's Books a couple of days ago. Think of it as an amuse bouche for my forthcoming book.

Click to view

Anyway, I'm just back ( Read more... )

I feel a little thwarted ( Read more... )

Last weekend I was in Glasgow, co-hosting the 50th Anniversary Conference on Watership Down with Dimitra Fimi. I was too busy to take photographs, so you'll have to take it from me that the event did indeed take place, and not only that but was a success. Richard Adams's daughter gave one of the keynotes (she looks exactly like him!), but we had ( Read more... )