Time travellers in present danger - Books - Times Online
For some reason I missed Amanda Craig's review of Tanglewreck, the much-noticed, heavily-promoted, very-well-produced Hawthornesque-titled hardback children's novel by Jeanette Winterson:
The tale is told with such sympathy and verve that you wonder why it has taken this writer so long to do what seems most natural to her. Reminiscent of John Masefield’s classic, The Midnight Folk, this story of a brave, lonely, imaginative child is drawn by someone who retains perfect recollection of what it was like to be one. What is particularly interesting is that, where adult novelists such as Audrey Niffenegger and Liz Jensen have recently used time travel to explore romantic love, these children’s authors use it to explore the moral debt adults owe children — a challenging preoccupation that guilty parents will recognise all too well. The special nature of childhood rests on having the luxury of time, as Dylan Thomas’s great poem, Fern Hill, recognises.
Amanda Craig is chairing one of Puffin's regular panel discussions tonight. Rick Riordan, on a rare, swift visitfrom the Sates, and Paul Shipton, will discuss the way their writing has been inspired by myths and legends.
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