This is reminding me that on the strength of your love for it, I bought The Valley of Song, and it still awaits me, a treat for one day.

I very much hope you enjoy it then!

I love the details of this that you offer that are not treacly--the child talking in noises, and the jennet that scents thoughts are brilliant, as is regret that smells like violets. But mermaids with headcolds and moles being taught their prayers, not so much.

It's just such a scramble. And she was writing perfectly functional novels for adults all through the learning curve of writing for children, which also fascinates me, since I don't think of the two as all that different the way she wrote for both at her best, but either the skill set transferred less than I would have expected or she had to learn to trust herself that it did. Not appearing in this review is the untidy, energetic, red-haired young Squire, whom I also like when he isn't stuck by the plot with anything too soppy. He has an argument near the end about the cruelty of imprisonment even when it is made comfortable and safe which hasn't gone out of relevance even when the notion of an angel stork-delivering babies has mercifully I hope gone the way of the dodo.