The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is best read when young, or by those with the ability to tap into their inner girl.I enjoyed the evil impostors who gleefully inflict child abuse. 'Wolves' is best read by kids who love to feel a bit of self-pity and delicious horror.Bonnie is a bit of a simpering thing and there are lots of mentions of dresses and lace. I didn't care about that. My eyes tend to glaze over fripperies in real life too. (It feels like I'm the only person alive who doesn't notice if someone mismatches their socks.) Sylvia had more spunk, if she was spoiled. I liked her a lot when she was knocked down some pegs.Wait, I don't know what my inner girl is. I liked the baddies! I rooted for the baddies as a kid. I wanted Ursula to win (don't get me started on my hatred of being called "Ariel" or, even worse, "The Little Mermaid". The 'm' is not silent, little me would rage.) I liked pretty much all the Disney baddies up until the creepy bearded dude from Aladdin. The baddies in 'Wolves' are great. They eat all of the good food for themselves. They send the girls off to an evil boarding school/slave house (Mr. Brocklehurst would die of envy). They sleep in and are bad in a way that Lemony Snickett wouldn't dream of. (Phillip Pullman too ripped off Aiken's series.)There are also cool wolves. Aiken writes atmospheric creepy wolf stuff very well. It's like a dark side of girly books like Avonlea or something. I'm weird or something because I actually found this more cozy than that.The Dido Twite books in the series are pure awesomeness and way, way better than 'Wolves'. I did not know about those until my adulthood, though. I skipped college classes to blow through all of them. Maybe I would have done that anyway. Anyway, they are super. Simon, the boy who lives in a cave, is the hero of Blackhearts in Battersea and Dido Twite appears. The rest of the books are hers because she owns. If you dig long range cannons, plots to overthrow kings, grinding bones to make your bread, kidnapping and pink whales: read those books.There was a film version made that has very little to do with this book. I saw it on tv when I was in middle school, and remember that I was much confused by the shared title. Where did they get the turning kids into soap stuff from? Sigh.P.s. Edward Gorey did the usa covers. Suck on that, England.
Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles are wildly inventive fantasies, set in an alternate England where the Stuarts remained on the throne, making the Hanoverians the rebels and conspirators, and where wolves still roam even in London. There are eleven of them in all (and won't be any more, since Aiken sadly died in January 2004), and I think of them in sets of two or three.The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Black Hearts in Battersea introduce many of the main characters in the series, chiefly Simon, an orphan, and Dido Twite, a London guttersnipe, as well as Dido's family, inveterate Hanoverian plotters, especially her Pa, a musical but amoral genius. Nightbirds on Nantucket and The Stolen Lake chronicle Dido's adventures outside England (as does Dangerous Games, though it was written after Dido and Pa), and The Cuckoo Tree and Dido and Pa tell what happens when she returns. Is Underground and Cold Shoulder Road tell of Dido's sister Is, and Midwinter Nightingale and The Witch of Clatteringshaws return to Dido and Simon's stories.Most people seem to think that the first three books are the best, and I'd agree with that; they have more focused plots than some of the later books. I do have an odd fondness for The Stolen Lake, which has Dido encountering ancient Britons in South America and an interesting Arthurian plot, but by Dido and Pa, I am generally happy to get back to England and Aiken's exploration of Dido's relationship with her family. Although the two Is books are very good, though significantly bleaker than the rest of the series (and Aiken is never afraid to be bleak or frightening), I was disappointed with the last two books, which are weaker of plot than the earlier ones. However, all of them are worth reading, and the first three are generally considered classics of children's fantasy; once you've read those, you'll want to read all eleven of them.
Do You like book The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase (2000)?
Wow, I had the completely wrong idea about Joan Aiken. For some reason I thought she was some sort of female Gary Paulsen with austere 80s-y books about communing with wolves or some shit. (I think I might have conflated her with Jean M Auel and Jean Craighead George, whose books I have also not read, but do seem to fit that description somewhat better.) Imagine my surprise when Alex told me it was about crime and adventure and alternate histories and even the titular wolves are just ravenous enemy creatures; and when the book introduction informed me it was written in the early 60s and set in the 19th century.I would have adored this book as a child, as I adored a lot of 19th & early 20th century children's literature, which this plays off of. In particular, it reminds me a bit of A Little Princess, only instead of hanging out in an attic being virtuous when their fortunes turn, our heroines go on adventurous journeys and explore secret passages and save lives. As the main character's father likes to say indulgently, "Girls will be girls!" A+++As a grownup I was obliged to love this book a little less for political reasons, and because despite their difficulties nothing really feels very complex or hard, but I would certainly read the next book IF ONLY MY DAMN LIBRARY HAD IT. Ahem.
—beatricks
Bonnie and Sylvia -- two little girls on a roller-coaster into the unknown!This is one of those magical books that seems to be written for children, but is equally captivating for adults. There's just something about the dream-like setting, the dark, ironic humor, the warmly romantic friendship of the two girls, that makes you feel this is really a dream you're having as an adult of what childhood could have been like, scary and beautiful and fascinating, instead of being like most childhoods, scary and humiliating and dull.
—Carol Storm
I read this as part of my project to read as many classic children's books as possible, in preparation for my next book. I haven't the least doubt I'd have devoured it as a kid, and it still stands up to adult scrutiny.Bonnie and Sylvia are one of those cousinly duos who, despite being like chalk and cheese (Bonnie is fiery and impetuous, Sylvia is shy and intelligent), take violently to each other. In fact, it reads more like a romance in some places; you can tell it was written in the Sixties, when such things wouldn't have crossed an audience's minds. (It would have crossed mine, but I was a precocious little git). With the help of Simon, the hyper talented goose boy (why are hirelings in these stories always such prodigies? An uneasy attempt to escape accusations of classism?), they fight against the sinister schemes of Miss Slighcarp, their wicked governess. As an adult, you can't help being more interested in this odious charlatan and her like minded buddies (a master con man and a corrupt headmistress respectively). What gives them the balls to attempt such a plot, and how far will they go? I loved the highly stylised drawings in my Kindle edition, where Miss Slighcarp (best Dickensian surname ever, may I add) looks like a cross between Mister Punch and a vulture.I don't see myself reading the other books in the series - plot developments are telegraphed a mile off, and everyone's far too nice - but it's a lively, atmospheric read, and you can see why it's been such an enduring classic.
—Rachael Eyre
