This is a slightly unusual review in that The Serial Garden is not a book I’ve just read for the first time. In fact, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it since it was released 9 years ago, because it’s one of my favourite collections of short stories. I have a terrible feeling most of you reading this are too young to have grown up with Joan Aiken books, so I shall explain further.
Joan Aiken is probably better known as the author of a number of novels for children, including The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Black Hearts in Battersea. I never really got on with her novels, but I adored her short stories, particularly those that featured the Armitage family. The Armitages were your typical 1950s middle class family. They lived in a big house with a cook and a maid, and Mr Armitage went off to work each day while his wife was a lady who lunched and the children, Mark and Harriet, went off to boarding school or amused themselves. Unless it was Monday (or the occasional Tuesday). On Mondays, very unusual things tend to happen to the Armitages. They might end the day with a new pet unicorn, or find themselves going for afternoon tea with a ghost, or having lessons in the middle of the night with a ghostly governess. The stories were exactly the sort of magical things that seemed like they *could* happen, even though I came from a very different sort of family.
The only problem with particularly loving the Armitage stories was that they were scattered throughout various collections, most of which are now out of print. And then 9 years ago came the glorious news – they were collecting all the Armitage stories into one book and naming it after my favourite story. Not only that, there were new stories I’d never read.
It will not surprise you at this point, if I tell you that I absolutely love this book. The stories, especially the later ones, don’t always hold up but a hefty dose of nostalgia papers over any cracks. And the title story, The Serial Garden, is still, in my opinion, Aiken’s masterpiece. It’s such a magical piece of writing, yet it still feels like it could happen, and it’s so sad and bittersweet. Before this book came out, The Serial Garden was the story that always stuck with me. Mark and Harriet are very sensible young people who take everything in their stride, and exactly the sort of person I hope I would be if faced with their extraordinary Mondays.
If you’ve never read a Joan Aiken short story, I highly recommend The Serial Garden as a place to start. I don’t know how well the stories stand up without the nostalgia influencing your opinion, but I encourage you to at least give it a try!
5/5
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