Joan Aiken’s advice to young writers when she went to give talks in schools was always to carry a small notebook and to jot down anything of interest. She wrote: “The most frequent question they ask is Where do ideas come from? And if I’m talking to them in a classroom I produce the small […]
Joan Aiken enjoyed some very happy relationships with her illustrators, notably Pat Marriott, who illustrated her first story collections from 1953 onwards, and was responsible for the first ‘Wolves Chronicles’ covers and pictures, and so helped to create some of the best loved ( and scariest!) characters in the series. Pat became so familiar […]
It is not surprising that Dido Twite is such an enduring heroine, her very survival was a piece of luck, or perhaps was even engendered by her own strongest character trait – she never gave up hope. Joan Aiken has admitted that she had imagined Dido drowning at the end of Black Hearts […]
Creating her own period of alternate history gave Joan Aiken the freedom to exercise her endless imagination, but also provided her with the opportunity to use a variety of stored information from her wide ranging reading and her life-long fascination with all kinds of study. These elements, combined with an absolutely riotous ear for dialogue […]
Thanks, Lizza, for this peek into the character-author relationship. I remember my relief when I saw, at the start of Nightbirds on Nantucket, that Dido had survived for another tale — and my joy to learn that she would return several more times in future books. There are so many tales of reader-driven sequels and prequels (the Oz books, Anne of Green Gables, etc.) that are weaker than the original, but Dido’s character and adventures don’t fall into this trap.
Oh, so glad to have Dido appear and remind me I have all the stories to re-read and review!
Why does she appeal to male readers? Is it because she is the perpetual tomboy, the resourceful, big-hearted and pragmatic female that males would like to emulate, the restless, questing figure that doesn’t fall into the ‘trap’ of the wedding-bells-happy-ending but lives to fight another day? Possibly all that, and more (I note that it’s not cut-and-dried that she and Simon will splice the knot at the end).
Can hardly wait to start these dozen or so books again, just as soon as I get my pile down to manageable levels…
Me too…so great to go back and start again, knowing what one knows. Meanwhile do go to that Guardian Assignment page and put in a recommendation vote, and send chaps of your acquaintance? She deserves it!
No, and she does grow and change from peaky brat, to a strong and empathetic companion. Perhaps it is Simon who has trouble keeping up with her?