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| Diana Wynne Jones |
| Barrington Stoke |
| 1842993968 |
| Aug 2006 |
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“When she thought about it later, Anne thought it must have been because her legs under the duvet made a shape like a landscape with two long hills and a green jungly valley in between.” Suffering from a frightful case of the mumps, purple cheeked and swollen, Anne Smith is confined to bed. To allay the tedium of the sick-room, Anne begins drawing pictures of a hero, Enna Hittims (Anne Smith spelt backwards with an additional ‘it’ – because Htims is too hard to say!). The power of Anne’s imagination imbues life and character into the felt-tip drawing of Enna, a fearful, though diminutive warrior, whose magic sword and cavalier attitude places her firmly in the spirit and mould of the Amazonians. Bed-linen becomes laid out as the landscape upon which Enna Hittim and her associates’ battles and adventuring are played out. Explorations are charted around Ankle Bend, following Fold River and ascending Left Toe Mountain. Enna is far from being a malevolent hero. She suffers a violent disposition as becomes apparent when, in a fit of pique, she lops the head from an unsuspecting hermit. Alas, however, in setting Enna’s quest to find the dragon, Anne modelled the monster upon Tibby her cat. An onslaught between Enna and her comrades and Anne and Tibby begins seeing the scaling of the staircase. A symmetry exists between the assault in Anne’s abode and her immune system’s battle against mumps. An epic tale played out in household environs with a miniature hero at its heart. |
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