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Title: Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken, Edward Gorey ISBN: 0-395-97128-4 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Awesome sequel to Wolves Of Willoughby Chase!
Comment: This book is an awesome addition to the Wolves of Willoghby Chase. Although, Bonnie and Sylvia Green have a very small part in the story, this book is even more suspensful than its predecessor. Simon returns to study Painting with Dr. Field at an art academy in London. In London we meet many new and exciting characters, Dido Twite, a poor child who craves adventure and Simons's affection, Sophie, the lady-in-waiting for the Duchess of Battersea, and many others. There are other books besides this one. Make sure to read them all. An excellent series to read aloud to a Fifth or Sixth Grade class. They just die when you stop right before the climax of a part. It really captures their attention.
Rating: 2
Summary: TOO MANY VILLAINS AND COINCIDENCES
Comment: Billed as the 2nd in the WOLVES chronicles, this book proves a great disappointment after the delightful WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE--at least to an adult audience. Kids will enjoy it though--lots of action, evil plotters lurking everywhere, spunky heroines, and a determined hero. But there are too many coincidences involving related families and mistaken identities to be realistic for adults to swallow. You really have to be a kid at heart to enjoy this 239-page adventure/soap opera.
If you are expecting wolves to be running rampant in London itself, well, they Do get around, both in the city and back in the northern wolds. Simon, the former gooseboy, arrives in London eager to study painting--only to discover that his friend and mentor, Dr. Field, has mysteriously disappeared. With the aid of kind and resourceful Sophie, whom he knew from the Poor Farm, and a feisty brat named Dido Twite, Simon undertakes to: --find his lost friend --save a Ducal family from murderous plots --prevent a King's assassination, during the era of the Hanoverian conspiracy for the throne.
Aiken's style is definitely humorous; she seems to invent many words and clever slang. She obviously relishes quaint vocabulary (keep your dictionary handy), as she spoofs the British establishemnt from Scottish accents to Art and Philanthropic institutions. It's a fun read featuring the Impossible in an amusing vein. TRUST NO ONE!
Rating: 4
Summary: The Next Installment in a Fantastic Adventure
Comment: "Black Hearts in Battersea" is the second book in Joan Aiken's beloved "Wolves" saga, beginning with "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" and continuing in "Nightbirds in Nantucket". Each book can be read separately and out of order (ie, each is a separate story, not one big story broken into several parts), linked by re-appearing characters, plot lines and locations. Each is set in a cleverly devised "parallel universe" where historical figures and events are changed from what we would recognise in our own history books. In this case, the action takes place in London, where Britain is ruled by good King James III and plauged by maurauding wolves immigrating from Russia, with other little snippets of an alternative history slipped in to give the book a whimsical, but authentic air. Anyone who has read Diana Wynne Jones's "Chrestomanci" books, or Phillip Pullman's "Northern Lights" will have no trouble adapting to this new environment, but those who haven't might be in for a pleasent surprise when they discover some of the little gems Aiken throws in: next to the familiar sights of Hyde Park and St Paul's Cathedral are places such as Battersea Castle on the Thames, made of pinkish stone, and made 'to look like a great half-open rose.' With such a fascinating world to explore, it hardly seems to matter whether there's a story or not.
But of course there is, and it perfectly combines with the backdrop Aiken sets for it. Young Simon the half-wild goose-boy, last seen being offered a painting career by Dr Field in "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" arrives in London to begin his education at the Art Academy in Chelsea. But things are set to go wrong from the very beginning. On reaching Dr Field's described boarding house, there is no sign of him, and the family Twite insists that they've never heard of him. Befriending their youngest daughter, the rude, filthy, brattish Dido Twite, Simon gradually begins to make his way around in London and at the Art Academy - discovering some very suspicious things concerning the Twites in the meanwhile.
He meets up with his old friend from the Poor Farm where he grew up: the lovely Sophie, who is now the handmaiden of the Duchess of Battersea, and with the young Duke-to-be Justin, a somewhat miserable and pathetic boy. In his ever-growing adventures, including visits with the eccentric Duke of Battersea, strange occurances at the Twites, and a highly enjoyable visit to the Fair, Simon comes to uncover a terrible Hanoverian plot to overthrow the king, and the secret to his own mysterious past. With plenty of wolves, fireworks, shipwrecks, kidnappings, suberfuges, maroonings, hot air balloons, explosions, false identities, lucky escapes and poisoned mince pies, "Black Hearts in Battersea" is a great read, and even better if it's read aloud, either to your own kids or a classroom (the lower classes's Cockney accents in particular are wonderfully created in Aiken's language).
Of course, it is unashamedly filled with quirks, coincidences and long stretches of credibilty that will have anyone over the age of eight that enjoy nice, sensible stories raising an eyebrow in skepticism. To read the book critically would destroy any enjoyment one might have of it, as it is most certainly not to be taken too seriously. How could you when you have lines like: "My own dear husband's dead brother's long-lost child!" Just sit back and enjoy the story, complete with its exaggerations and unlikelihoods, as it harks back to another era where such occurances were taken dead-seriously.
The "Wolves Saga" is a little known, but fantastic series, and I'm sure the previously-mentioned authors (Diana Wynne Jones and Phillip Pullman) owe a lot to Aiken's methods of alternative-history, as she is the first "modern" writer to the best of my knowledge to instigate such a device. Her characters are great fun (though Bonnie and Sylvia of "Wolves of Willoughby Chase" were sadly missed) and her stories filled with non-stop excitement and discovery.
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Title: Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken ISBN: 0395971853 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken ISBN: 0618196234 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 28 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken ISBN: 0618070230 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 25 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken ISBN: 0618070214 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 25 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Midwinter Nightingale (Wolves Chronicles) by Joan Aiken ISBN: 0385730810 Publisher: Delacorte Press Pub. Date: 10 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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