Bogwoppit (A Puffin Book)

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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. The antisocial aunt lives in a mansion in a park, and absolutely does not want the girl staying there. I think this is the genius of the writing, how the author manages to create a strong personality in a creature that has no language to communicate. It used to make me think amazing things can happen to anyone, which is always the best kind of children’s book. She wrote and illustrated over sixty books for children with the most notable being Gobbolino the Witch's Cat and The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse.

Ursula Moray Williams was born on 19 April 1911 at Petersfield, Hampshire, ten minutes after her twin sister, Barbara. I'm glad Puffin republished these lesser known children's stories, and with wonderful covers which is always a good thing. It is, she discovers, a bogwoppit, an animal assumed extinct, and one of many that come up through the drains from the outside pond.Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse, written while expecting her first child, remained in print throughout her life from its publication in 1939. They included The Good Little Christmas Tree of 1943, and Gobbolino, the Witch’s Cat first published the previous year. Bogwoppit is a light-hearted, lively story, brilliantly told by Ursula Moray Williams, author of Gobbolino. After her husband's death in 1974, Ursula Moray Williams remained active, writing, gardening, giving talks and visiting her family in various parts of the world.

She discovers they were thought to be extinct, and is deeply horrified when her aunt, who considers them pests, kills all of them with poison. He was quite prepared to believe that the Bogwoppit existed, but not that people behaved as they did throughout the book.

She has been abandoned in a decaying old house by her aristocratic explorer husband, fighting the creeping damp and the encroaching bogwoppits and it has made her afraid and bitter. 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. The story is interesting, I remember being gripped by it as a kid, and with a group of my friends, because it has more tragedy in it than most books for kids that age, and yet it's fun, quirky, and has so many things in it that you want in a story at that age. There are host of well-developed and hilarious characters here, all interacting in madcap ways, to make an entertaining and fulfilling story. 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. Weaving humour, fantasy and suspense into a highly inventive story, its eco theme and larger-than-life characters ensure its popularity with today’s young readers. Aunt Daisy wants to get rid of them all, but Samantha grows very fond of one and can't bear to part with him.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. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file.