New Location for the Beastiary!
I’ve moved to a new platform. I’ll keep this one active for a little while, but please go to https://beastiaryofbooks.com/ for future posts.
No post today
I’m taking the day off because Reasons. Instead, please enjoy this illustration by one of my favorite illustrators, Robin Jacques:
Mondays
Now that I’ve gotten up a good head of steam, I’m going to settle in for the long haul and just post on Mondays. This week’s Monday post is Falter Tom and the Water Boy. Hope to see you here on future Mondays!
The Richleighs of Tantamount (1966)
Four siblings from an E. Nesbit book find themselves in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, wander through a few Enid Blyton Famous Five books and The Secret Garden, to arrive, surprisingly, at a satisfying ending. Edwin, Angeline, Sebastian, and Maud Richleigh are the children of wealthy Londoners around the year 1870. They are fantastically pampered,… Read more The Richleighs of Tantamount (1966)
Lud-in-the-Mist (1926)
Lud-in-the-Mist is a neglected masterpiece of early 20th century fantastical and fairytale-inspired works. Though not written as a children’s book, it’s really is no less suited for children than Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea (which, to be fair, would today be marketed as Young Adult). Teens could certainly enjoy Lud-in-the-Mist, and older children whose… Read more Lud-in-the-Mist (1926)
The Thirteen Clocks (1950)
I cannot do better than to quote from the front flap: How can anyone describe this book? It isn’t a parable, a fairy story or a poem, but rather a mixture of all three. It is beautiful and it is comic. It is philosophical and it is cheery. There are only a few reasons why… Read more The Thirteen Clocks (1950)
The Gammage Cup (1959)
In the Land Between the Mountains, in the village of Slipper-on-the-Water, lives a diffident, unremarkable Minnipin named Muggles. She is caught between the conventional, order-loving majority, and the odd few who don’t fit in: Curley Green the artist who paints her front door scarlet; Gummy the poet who wears a yellow cloak and hat; and… Read more The Gammage Cup (1959)
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth (1967)
In 1967, newcomer E. L. Konigsburg published two of the best books of the 1960’s (and, astonishingly, both got Newbery awards/honors in the same year). The better-known of the two is From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but here we will consider the equally excellent, and completely different, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth,… Read more Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth (1967)