“I never meant her to survive, but she was much too tough for me… she took root like an uninvited cuckoo fledgling, and became a kind of alter ego of mine… The whole point of Dido is her battle against terrific odds. But the reaction to the character from readers was so great that Joan Aiken hurriedly saved her from the briny waters and promoted her to star of the series. She’s irritating, funny and relatable.”ĭido’s first outing in Black Hearts in Battersea ended with her lost at sea and apparently drowned.

She just makes your heart sing because she’s so real. Dido Twite wasn’t bad, but she’s not good. “In all the books I had as a child, the children were good. Fleur Hitchcock on Night Birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken.Children’s author Fleur Hitchcock is a lifelong devotee, and she spoke to the Deeper Reading podcast about Dido’s appeal. ‘Enchanting’ isn’t the first adjective I’d use for this delightfully plucky urchin. Let’s start with Dido Twite, arguably Aiken’s greatest invention. It simultaneously outlines all the relevant (and mad) plot points but singularly fails to communicate the novel’s invention and heart. These words appear on the back of the 1975 edition of Joan Aiken’s Night Birds on Nantucket, the third book in a series that began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. “Dido Twite (the enchanting heroine of Black Hearts in Battersea), waking from a long sleep to foil Miss Slighcarp, the wicked governess, in her plan to assassinate King James III by long-distance-gun – and her greatest ally is a pink whale called Rosie.” Illustration by Pat MarriottĬroopus! What a blurb.

Nightbirds on nantucket