Let Sleeping Sea-Monsters Lie

Foreword by Julia Donaldson

As long as stories and people have existed, parents have been telling cautionary tales to their children, warning them what might happen to them if they are nasty, reckless or just bad-mannered. But these are cautionary tales with a difference. True, the offenders have the usual vices — they are rude, snobbish, disobedient, aggressive and bossy — and are bound to come a cropper. But the way in which they get their comeuppance is ingenious in every case, and always has something to do with an imaginary monster. In these adventures you will be introduced to a Frid, a Kraken, a Boobrie and several other creatures populating Eva Ibbotson’s fertile mind.

Eva Ibbotson, in common with some of my other favourite writers such as E. Nesbit and Roald Dahl, writes with a delightful mixture of wild imagination and down-to-earth common sense, tempering her flights of fancy with a satisfying sense of justice. These are the sort of stories I enjoyed as a child, which my children enjoyed and which I’m sure my grandchildren will enjoy too.