![]() ![]() Fleur Hitchcock on Night Birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken.Children’s author Fleur Hitchcock is a lifelong devotee, and she spoke to the Deeper Reading podcast about Dido’s appeal. ‘Enchanting’ isn’t the first adjective I’d use for this delightfully plucky urchin. Let’s start with Dido Twite, arguably Aiken’s greatest invention. ![]() It simultaneously outlines all the relevant (and mad) plot points but singularly fails to communicate the novel’s invention and heart. These words appear on the back of the 1975 edition of Joan Aiken’s Night Birds on Nantucket, the third book in a series that began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. “Dido Twite (the enchanting heroine of Black Hearts in Battersea), waking from a long sleep to foil Miss Slighcarp, the wicked governess, in her plan to assassinate King James III by long-distance-gun – and her greatest ally is a pink whale called Rosie.” Illustration by Pat MarriottĬroopus! What a blurb. ![]()
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