In Memory of Eva Ibbotson
Eva Ibbotson, renown British children’s author died recently. A lengthy obituary was published in the Telegraph. After reading it, I became curious about her books and sought them out at the library. What a delightful discovery! I got four of her chapter books: Journey to the River Sea (Macmillan, 2001,) The Beasts of Clawstone Castle (Macmillan, 2005,) Which Witch (Dutton, 1995) and Island of the Aunts (Dutton, 1999.) As per my usual custom, I read the first paragraph of each book aloud to my daughter for her to decide which one we would pursue for our bedtime reading. They all started off so brilliantly, it really was hard to choose but we settled on Which Witch which is, by the way, rather appropriate for Halloween today! Here’s the opening: As soon as he was born, Mr. and Mrs. Canker knew their baby was not like other people’s children. Curious?! Do get out the book and by reading it, commemorate the memory of this wonderful children’s author.
October 31st, 2010 at 4:13 am
Which Witch is a favourite one in these parts, as is Journey to the River Sea.
Oh didn’t know about her passing away. RIP Ibbotson.
October 31st, 2010 at 7:16 am
I’ve started Journey to the River Sea for myself and am enjoying it thoroughly. I wish I’d known about Ibbotson’s work earlier!
November 3rd, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Journey to the River Sea is one of the books on our waiting-to-be-read-together pile – I’m so sorry to hear she has passed away. The Guardian has a good obituary of her too, with focus on her latest book, The Ogre of Oglefort, which was shortlisted for the 2010 Guardian’s Children’s Prize. We haven’t read that yet either but it’s on the pile too!
November 22nd, 2010 at 4:55 am
[...] a few weeks ago, I did a short post on the recently deceased children’s writer Eva Ibbotson. I picked up a few of her books at [...]
October 19th, 2011 at 1:01 am
[...] Books at Bedtime post this week. My daughter and I have been reading the Ogre of Oglefort by the late Eva Ibbotson (MacMillan, 2010.) Perennial fans of Ibbotson, we were quite happy to have stumbled on this book [...]