We are not responsible for the republishing of the content found on this blog on other Web sites or media without our permission.

But found, as ever with Williams' books, that the books have an old-fashionedness of the very worst kind, the casual disrespect for anyone who is not English speaking, white, middle class kind. Shirley Hughes has created some beautiful illustrations to accompany the text which really enhances the story, and I loved repeatedly reading this tale of an ordinary girl who has an extraordinary adventure and ends up with everything she ever wanted.I'm glad Puffin republished these lesser known children's stories, and with wonderful covers which is always a good thing. however, Aunt Lily and Samantha have never really got on, and Samantha does not feel wanted or loved. It is about an orphan girl whose guardian aunt was done with her and told her to go live with her antisocial aunt.

My pick for the book I would take from my childhood favourites to read and reread on a desert island for June was Bogwoppit by Ursula Moray Williams. I won't change my rating since it's based on how much I loved it as a child, but it took me more than half the book to figure out what it was that I saw in it when I read it over 20 years ago. Firstly we have Samantha, an orphan who has been living with one of her aunts after her own mother died. When Aunt Lily marries the lodger and goes to America, orphaned Samantha is packed off to her Aunt Daisy, who lives in a grand house at the Park.These drawings are not cutesy, but the pictures of Samantha are excellent and portray the complex person in the story very well indeed. In the cellar of Park House, the old mansion where orphaned Samantha has been sent to stay with her disagreeable aunt Daisy, there are hundreds of bogwoppits - believed extinct, up till now. They included The Good Little Christmas Tree of 1943, and Gobbolino, the Witch’s Cat first published the previous year.