Some good friends of mine asked me to go on a podcast to talk about a children's book I love that I didn't actually read when I was a child, on which more when the time comes, and this very delightful experience sent me in the direction of some books I did read as a child. Which is why I just reread - reread? - Arabel and Mortimer, Joan Aiken's series of unhinged tales about Arabel (4) and her raven, Mortimer (age unknown). Mortimer is not a talking raven - the only things he says are "Kaaaark" and "Nevermore!" - but he's very expressive. When he gets upset he sulks in the fridge and when he's bored he eats stairs. This is a problem for the local users of Rumbury Town Tube station, who can't get out when there's no stairs. I say unhinged - in-universe everything is hilariously internally consistent; after a while Arabel's parents get a letter from a lawyer about damages to premises, to wit, stairs, caused by their giant bird, and there's a little debate about whether you can be answerable for the actions of a wild bird, and in the meantime the people of the Tube station decide it must be haunted (because something shadowy and dark is haphazardly clipping the tickets). And it's so funny, especially for adults! The address of this fictional London district is NW3 1/2!

I say maybe reread, because what I may remember from childhood is Aiken reading the stories for Jackanory on CBBC in the early nineties. (That was long, long before it was CBeebies! I'm very old.) Which would mean I am reading it for the first time, and what a treat.

I thought I might as well not go for any kind of theme, and instead just reread books from childhood that I want to. So I have The Magician's Nephew, which was always sneakily my favourite in the series and the one that has lived longest in my memory. (It's a really good book about grief, okay.) And also The Starlight Barking, the 101 Dalmatians sequel that everyone has read, believing they are the only person to have read this truly deranged piece of unDisneyish mysticism. Following that, I don't know. It would be Ballet Shoes if I hadn't reread it after I saw it at the National. Maybe the time has come for the decennial read of Watership Down.