Joan Aiken's invention seemed inexhaustible, her high spirits a blessing, her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure -- Philip Pullman It is the mixture of irrepressible gaiety and invention with the tragic that makes Aiken one of the great children's authors...impossible to calculate the number of people who have enjoyed her books - who have had some magic injected into the mundane She was a consummate story-teller, one that each generation discovers anew -- Amanda Craig The Times A writer of wild humour and unrestrained imagination Oxford Companion to Children's Literature