Martin and Lucy's father is the nerdy mathematician Dr. There are even key scenes involving a hot air balloon, a flying sailing ship, and a flying saucer of sorts.

On the back cover, you see Lucy's brother Martin and his bicycle with Jerome the hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional mouse in his duffel bag, with protective owls roosted nearby). Snowy, the sarcastic talking cat smiles smugly at them. And of course, there's lots of magic (the cover art rather gives some of it away - that's Sarah and Lucy you see riding Horse, while Lucy clutches the titular box. She could have been a neighbour in Kiki's Delivery Service. Sarah, one of the major characters, is a young and pretty, red-headed potter living on her own and operating her own small village shop. I couldn't read this one without picturing every scene animated by Studio Ghibli (seriously - there's even a scene with old-time steam-powered cars at the village Fete in the Chilterns, with key characters dressed in period clothing, top hats, waistcoats and all). (I'll definitely be discussing it shortly in the Forgotten Vintage Children's Lit We Want Republished! group, which I heartily invite you to join!. It's awesome - it's right up there with A Visit to Folly Castle and The Oak King and the Ash Queen for out-of-print and sadly not yet digitized retro reads that I wholeheartedly encourage you to track down and purchase secondhand. Thankfully, there's so much richness and depth and effort put into this story, that my prejudices would have been unfounded. What interesting story could possibly be borne of one of my least favourite nursery rhymes?

If I had read ahead of time that this out-of-print 70s children's fantasy was based upon that nursery rhyme, I'd have given it a miss. Hey Diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon the little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon.

The conjuror's box by Ann Lawrence