Stealing a kid from “Stuck”

There are some bloggers that just seem to be writing for me. Top of my list is Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book. He will insist on writing things that make me scream “me too” or, worse than that, I end up stealing borrowing snippets and putting them on my own blog. So here we go again. S-i-a-B’s posting today is about the other five books that Bloomsbury are going to reprint (the first is “Miss Hargreaves” by Frank Baker.

S-i-a-B had not heard of “A Kid for Two Farthings” by WoldMankowitz so finally I know something that he doesn’t. Phew! I’m more than twice his age so it’s about time that age won out over beauty. AKFTF is one of those books that I picked up a million years ago in a bin/box outside a shop (probably charity shop but who rememebers). Usually those bins contain nothing but dross or what looks like dross and to be honest my copy of AKFTF (as above) certainly looked like pulp fiction. it gave the appearance of being nicotine-stained even if it wasn’t. I was about 14, actually thinking about it, probably more like 12 when I picked this book up and it widened my knowledge of the world considerably, but in a very innocent way. I remember being appalled at the way pets were sold on the market because, although I was born at the tail end of the 1950s, I think I must have lead a sheltered life and been protected from some of the upsetting things in life. I also rememebr being fascinated by dealing in antiques in this story. If I remember correctly then there is a touch of the Lovejoys in one strand of the stories that weave together. So if you are up for a bit of magic, in an era before everyone wore jeans everywhere then stand in line and wait for the Bloomsbury reprint of “A Kid for Two Farthings”.