everyone seems to be on about cynthia voigt lately, and on inquiry it turns out they've all been reading her since they were crawling, and i was astonished because i had never heard of her. *squirm* so still a little suspicious i look her up in that bible of good children's literature, kaye webb's 1986 "i like this story," and of course, there she was, cited for "homecoming" (su-lin spent a long time describing the series to me the other week) along with half a dozen books i've come across in my adult reading life and enjoyed but did not know as a child, even though i've had kaye webb's book here at home since it came out. my dad read excerpts from it, and if we thought a recommendation sounded interesting we went out and bought it. i remember her putting me on to meindert dejong's house of sixty fathers and james thurber's the wonderful o and richard adams's watership down, although watership down frightened me as a child, barbed wires are not pleasant things to imagine. i am planning to spend the next two weeks reading only children's books, i think i shall depend less on fortituity and whim for a change and use kaye webb as a guide. she has impeccably good taste in children's books (the phantom tollbooth is in there, so are arthur ransome, penelope lively, ursula le guin, dianne wynne-jones and jill paton walsh.) not surprising considering her long stewardship of puffin books! and francis spufford writes of her in his wonderful "the child that books built" - which is another book people should really read...