The Hollyhock Wall

If you need just a little magic put back in your life, seek out this amazing book. The text is something special, but it is the illustrator who adds a whole new dimension. Her notes tell us she likes to make pictures out of things she can touch. Mary, the child in the story, is stitched, and her clothes are knitted; the kitchen table is covered in a lace cloth, and the clock on the wall is a wrist watch. Mary is a lonely child living at the top of a tall house. She longs for a garden, and her mother suggests she makes one in a pot. 'But somehow, some strange how, something strange happened...' and the play garden becomes real, and we see on the next page variegated ivies, maidenhair fern, helxine and violas, woven into a truly magical garden, peopled by a tiny version of Mary herself and the clay boy she has made. Waddell resolves this story with his usual masterly touch, ensuring the lonely little girl finds happiness. This is surely a book to share one to one with a child who has magic in its soul, or maybe one who needs it. The illustrations stay in one's eye after closing the book, but the story also weaves a way deep into one's memory.