i took the book off the shelf without scrutinising the cover because the spine said wynne-jones, now how was i to know there were two wynne-joneses who were both writing for young people?! besides, the title was vaguely (admittedly only vaguely) fantasy and the blurb talked about equinoxes and eggs aligning themselves. so. tim wynne-jones. who is not related to dianne and writes about canadian children and i'm sorry to say i didn't really like him. in the same vein, philip pullman's children's story "i was a rat" is very, very good, but his "butterfly tattoo," which is yp, and involves teenage love and death, is not. that makes two unsatisfactory books i've read today, so i am very restless.i think we're past the age, forever and ever, when we can read yp fiction about relationships, unless l'engle and a ring of endless light counts. if you had to read about relationships you read iris murdoch, or a.s. byatt. children's lit will never cease to delight, but yp fiction, unless fantasy, is very hard to like anymore.