The Wooden Dragon

Aiken’s short stories provide one of the richest troves of magical whimsy within children’s literature. This story features Handle and Window, a sailor brother and lame sister who live in a small secluded house within a ring of trees. When Handle has to leave for a long voyage, Window frets away in loneliness and neglects the wooden dragon that her brother has carved to protect her. As the year ages, the suffocating leaves accumulate around the house and Window falls into an enchanted sleep in which she hears a creature weeping. Aiken lovers will recognise the eclectic allusions to folk motifs and the lightly hinted-at symbolism. Published in the year of her death, this book is a collaboration with an illustrator whose richly coloured but dreamily blurred depictions of elfin figures amongst sylvan gloom and glory beautifully match the mood of a slight but haunting story.