Eat an Apple Sing a Song

“She thought about Penny’s stories. There was one about a man who had three wishes and married a swan. If I had three wishes, I know what I’d wish for, thought Is. I’d wish for those two boys to be found, and for us all to be back on Blackheath Edge. She thought about Penny teaching her to read. “What’s the point of reading?” Is had grumbled at first. “You can allus tell me stories, that’s better than reading.” “I’ll not always be here,” Penny had said shortly. “Besides, once you can read, you can learn somebody else. Folk should teach each other what they know.” “Why?” “If you don’t learn anything, you don’t grow. And someone’s gotta learn you.”

Well, thought Is, if I get outta here, I’ll be able to learn some other person the best way to get free from a rolled-up rug.”
― Joan Aiken, Is Underground

 

“The use of reading, Gibbon says somewhere, is to aid us in thinking. I have always disagreed with Gibbon over that; he may have used literature to help him think, but for me, often, and for most of the human race I reckon (since I have no reason to think myself unique) books can be a mind-stupefying drug, employed to banish thought, not to invoke it. When I am unhappy I can sink into a novel as into unconsciousness. Blessed War and Peace, thrice blessed Mansfield Park; how many potential suicides have their pages distracted and soothed and entertained past the danger point?”
― Joan Aiken, Foul Matter

“Words are like spices. Too many is worse than too few.”
― Joan Aiken, The Last Slice of Rainbow and Other Stories

“Why do we want to have alternate worlds? It's a way of making progress. You have to imagine something before you do it. ”
― Joan Aiken

Here’s some friendly advice from the lost Queen’s boots in

Over the Cloudy Mountains, the first story in “The Winter Sleepwalker”

illustrated by Quentin Blake