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Originally Posted by gmw
A recent read (The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas) had mention of The Box of Delights by John Masefield. It's a fairly well known children's story that I had never read, so I picked it up ... but can't say I'm enjoying it very much so far. I see it was made into a TV series in 1984. (Starring Devin Stanfield, Patrick Troughton and Robert Stephens.)
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The Box of Delights was published in 1935 as a sequel to the 1927 book,
The Midnight Folk - which I have not read.
The Box of Delights, at almost 90k words or 400 pages, seems remarkably long for a book intended for such a young audience. One curiosity is that the main antagonist refers to himself as "little Abner" quite a few times (I don't know if he did so in the first book). The first "Li'l Abner" comic in America was published in 1934. I cannot find any link between the two, it seems to be just coincidence.
Certainly not a book I'm going to nominate, but looking at various reviews on Goodreads and other places, these two books by John Masefield do hold a special place in some people's memories.