We get stuck with how people see us

[sovay]

Remember that children's picture book with the sea-ghosts I was mentioning a few weeks ago? I found it. It's Birdy and the Ghosties (1989); I recognized the cover illustration immediately. What I didn't remember was its author, Jill Paton Walsh. Who is also responsible for The Green Book (1981), which rushthatspeaks and I both read in elementary school, possibly under its reissue title of Shine, and A Parcel of Patterns (1984), which traumatized us a few years later. Who knew? At this point, I'm just waiting to see what else turns up out of her bibliography—oh, wait, Fireweed's (1970) hers, too. Yes, I have been recommended Knowledge of Angels (1994). What I can't figure out is how she seems to have wound up best known for her Sayers fic.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Sovay, you can apparently buy a copy for *a penny* (plus shipping...)

I remember your talking about this. How cool that you found it.

[sovay]

I remember your talking about this. How cool that you found it.

The image that I remember the book for is that when Birdy looks at them one way, the ghosts are like things dredged off the ocean floor—scrabbly as a lobster, a slump of sea-jellied slime, a rotting fish for the child's toy—and the other way they're royalty of the sea, clean and shining, with crowns and something beautifully carved. I meant to get a copy out of the library today, but it didn't happen. I thought maybe it was also the book with the mer-child sleeping in the baptismal font, but that appears to be Matthew and the Sea Singer (1992).

The other one I'd lost for years was Trinka Hakes Noble's Hansy's Mermaid (1983), which my friendlist actually helped me identify. I still don't own a copy, but at least I know where to find it.

What I really want is an affordable copy of The Valley of Song. So far, not so much.

[coraline]

i.... WHAT?

ok, i loved "the green book" enough to track it down eventually as an adult and buy a copy, but how did i not realize that was the same author as "thrones, dominions"???

i should obviously check out those other books...

[sovay]

ok, i loved "the green book" enough to track it down eventually as an adult and buy a copy, but how did i not realize that was the same author as "thrones, dominions"???

I didn't either! rushthatspeaks had just told me to read Knowledge of Angels, I decided to throw her name into Google, and we spent the next fifteen minutes trading wait, what? This bibliography is ten years out of date and it's still crazily prolific.

i should obviously check out those other books...

I remember very positively all the ones I've read!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Is she best know for her Sayers fic? I'm not sure: knowing her best for her children's books I may be coming at it from an odd angle. But she's one of those very versatile writers who probably have different identities in different people's heads, depending how they first happened to come across her.

Do read Goldengrove and Unleaving (sometimes published in a single volume) if you get the chance.

[sovay]

Is she best know for her Sayers fic?

It's how I discovered her as an adult; she seems to write mysteries lately, both Wimsey and a series of her own. You may be right that it's an angle-of-approach thing.

But she's one of those very versatile writers who probably have different identities in different people's heads, depending how they first happened to come across her.

Assuming they remember . . .

Do read Goldengrove and Unleaving (sometimes published in a single volume) if you get the chance.

I approve of the titles!

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Those all look really cool. I think I might have to pick up A Parcel of Patterns, if only for the history.

[sovay]

I think I might have to pick up A Parcel of Patterns, if only for the history.

Best YA novel I've ever read about the plague. It's set in Eyam. Then do something cheerful like read political history.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Oh... Wow.

They did right and died.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

She's very well known as a children's writer in Britain.

But the Sayers fic makes me angry -- it's very bad, it's not true to their characters or to the period, and the mystery is terrible. It's an excrescence on Sayers's work, and it's wasting the time and energy of a truly excellent writer.

I hate it that writers can't make a living.

[sovay]

It's an excrescence on Sayers's work, and it's wasting the time and energy of a truly excellent writer.

I didn't hate Thrones, Dominations, though it took me several years to decide whether I wanted to read it; I haven't read the rest. I'm sorry.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

How on earth do I not have a copy of the sea-ghost book? And it would be so very at home in the Noyes, where the ghostly gentleman, by the way, inhabits the staff computer room off to the side (presumably lured by the warm hum of the eckeltronicks.)

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look at their catalogue. Nicole paid her fine up, so now we can borrow books without being decimated, decapitated, or defenestrated!

(I am writing Behbeh Fleming. Please sharpen your box of "adorable.")

[sovay]

How on earth do I not have a copy of the sea-ghost book?

Is inexplicable to me. You should get one for Noel, she said altruistically.

And it would be so very at home in the Noyes, where the ghostly gentleman, by the way, inhabits the staff computer room off to the side (presumably lured by the warm hum of the eckeltronicks.)

I'm somehow not surprised to hear that. (Have they got a copy?)

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Giant moth people hatching out of boulders?! ...actually, this does sound a bit familiar. Ah, YA of years past--how very, very strange you can turn out to be.

[sovay]

Ah, YA of years past--how very, very strange you can turn out to be.

rushthatspeaks and I have an ongoing conversation about the cracktastic books of our childhood. The one I'm currently trying to track down is Monica Hughes' Devil on My Back (1984), a computer-mandated dystopia whose underground railway filks a particular version of "Gypsy Davy"—I only realized years later from a Limeliters recording. There was also a sequel with telepathy.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Interesting set of books. I'm glad you've found them. Should I ask how A Parcel of Patterns traumatised ye?

[sovay]

Should I ask how A Parcel of Patterns traumatised ye?

Plague.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

According to this Observer article, the Sayers trustees were impressed by Knowledge of Angels - I'd rather assumed the link was her own crime fiction, which I don't much like (whereas I quite enjoyed what I've read of the Sayers).

Seconding steepholm on Goldengrove and Unleaving, and I also very much love The Emperor's Winding Sheet.

As it happens, since we are just past midsummer, I have just seen the college friend who started the tradition of going to Lindisfarne, whose father was REctor of Eyam; I have attended parties in that rectory.

[sovay]

I'd rather assumed the link was her own crime fiction, which I don't much like (whereas I quite enjoyed what I've read of the Sayers).

What are her own mysteries like?

Seconding steepholm on Goldengrove and Unleaving, and I also very much love The Emperor's Winding Sheet.

I saw that in her bibliography! I have not read many novels about the fall of Constantinople, YA or otherwise; I'm planning to look for it.

As it happens, since we are just past midsummer, I have just seen the college friend who started the tradition of going to Lindisfarne, whose father was REctor of Eyam; I have attended parties in that rectory.

Okay, that's neat.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Her Imogen Quy mysteries that I've read are deceptively mild over Chippendale crafting. Please go and read _A Piece of Justice_ immediately, before you run across a spoiler.

[sovay]

Please go and read _A Piece of Justice_ immediately, before you run across a spoiler.

I'll look for it when I return her other books to the library. Presently I'm reading The Emperor's Winding Sheet.