Rediscover the A Puffin Book series and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this treasured edition of Arabel and Mortimer Stories. Late one night, as Mr Jones drove his taxi home through a storm, he spotted a large black bird with a hairy fringe round its beak sprawled out in the road. Mr Jones decides to take the bird home to Number Six, Rainwater Crescent, London, NW 3 1/2, to meet his daughter, Arabel, she'll know what to do - she loves animals! 'His name's Mortimer', she said. But it doesn't take long until the mischievous Mortimer causes chaos in the Jones household. . . Joan Aiken is a marvel -- Philip Pullman * The Guardian *. Reviews Joan Aiken (Author) Joan Delano Aiken (1924-2004) was the daughter of the American poet, Conrad Aiken. Joan had a variety of jobs, including working for the BBC, the United Nations Information Centre and then as features editor for a short story magazine. Her first children's novel, The Kingdom and the Cave, was published in 1960. Joan Aiken wrote over a hundred books for young readers and adults and is recognized as one of the classic authors of the twentieth century. Her best-known books are those in the James III saga, of which The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was the first title, published in l962 and awarded the Lewis Carroll prize. Both that and Black Hearts in Battersea have been filmed. Her books are internationally acclaimed and she received the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the United States as well as the Guardian Award for Fiction in this country for The Whispering Mountain. In 1999 Joan Aiken was awarded an MBE for her services to children's books. Quentin Blake (Illustrator) Quentin Blake has illustrated more than three hundred books and was Roald Dahl's favourite illustrator. In 1980 he won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. In 1999 he became the first ever Children's Laureate and in 2013 he was knighted for services to illustration.
