Friday 4 September 2015

Joan Aiken

New Google logo, day four - it has been replaced by an image of a haunted forest with children being pursued by wolves.

That’s better. Much less disturbing. 

Okay, this is actually the first Google Doodle since the change in logo, to celebrate what would be the 91st birthday of Joan Aiken, best known for her children’s chiller The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase. Set in an alternate 19th century with a different royal family, a Channel Tunnel, and wolves stalking the forest, the series gives a creepy spin on Victorian stories of adventurous orphans.

It’s the kind of sinister and off-kilter version of the past the the TARDIS tends to land in. My first historical episode of The Door In Time may owe a bit to it... and I could see an adventure wondering what inspired her to chart such an alternate history.

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