The appeal of this book is the humour and the sheer level of imagination that has gone into the story. The book suffers from what most of the other reviewers have said - they (like me) read it when they were young and assumed their kids would like it too now. Aunt Daisy wants to get rid of them all, but Samantha grows very fond of one and can't bear to part with him. The antisocial aunt lives in a mansion in a park, and absolutely does not want the girl staying there.

Weaving humour, fantasy and suspense into a highly inventive story, its eco theme and larger-than-life characters ensure its popularity with today’s young readers.She discovers they were thought to be extinct, and is deeply horrified when her aunt, who considers them pests, kills all of them with poison. Orphan Samantha is sent to live with her aunt, Lady Clandorris, who lives in a thoroughly dilapidated mansion mirroring her own unloved and gloomy life. It is, she discovers, a bogwoppit, an animal assumed extinct, and one of many that come up through the drains from the outside pond. Bogwoppit is a light-hearted, lively story, brilliantly told by Ursula Moray Williams, author of Gobbolino.

It immediately sold out but disappeared until re-issued in abridged form by Kaye Webb at Puffin Books twenty years later, when it became a best-seller. It seems as though Samantha and her aunt will never agree - until one day Aunt Daisy mysteriously disappears and Samantha plans a big rescue operation! Firstly we have Samantha, an orphan who has been living with one of her aunts after her own mother died. She certainly is not wanted when her aunt gets married and wants to move to America, so she gets palmed off on yet another aunt, who wants her even less. Shirley Hughes has created some beautiful illustrations to accompany the text which really enhances the story, and I loved repeatedly reading this tale of an ordinary girl who has an extraordinary adventure and ends up with everything she ever wanted.

The story is interesting, I remember being gripped by it as a kid, and with a group of my friends, because it has more tragedy in it than most books for kids that age, and yet it's fun, quirky, and has so many things in it that you want in a story at that age. As well as writing, she became involved in local life around the village of Beckford, where she and her family lived, organizing children's parties, and serving as a magistrate. Ursula Moray Williams was born on 19 April 1911 at Petersfield, Hampshire, ten minutes after her twin sister, Barbara.

The book feels a bit dated now, A child being left to find somewhere to live whilst her relatives move to America to live, school does nothing just accepts the change.After her husband's death in 1974, Ursula Moray Williams remained active, writing, gardening, giving talks and visiting her family in various parts of the world. Many people will know Ursula Moray Williams for her more famous books, Gobbolino the Witch’s Catand The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse, both of which I loved, but my favourite of her books was always Bogwoppit. But found, as ever with Williams' books, that the books have an old-fashionedness of the very worst kind, the casual disrespect for anyone who is not English speaking, white, middle class kind.

We are not responsible for the republishing of the content found on this blog on other Web sites or media without our permission. Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse, written while expecting her first child, remained in print throughout her life from its publication in 1939. When Aunt Lily marries the lodger and goes to America, orphaned Samantha is packed off to her Aunt Daisy, who lives in a grand house at the Park. Her classic stories often involved brave creatures who overcome trials and cruelty in the outside world before finding a loving home. The last thing she wants is the responsibility of her brash niece, but Samantha isn’t taking no for an answer, and they are going to have to learn how to rub along together.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I’d like to be able to describe them to you, but they aren’t really like anything you’ll every have seen and you need to read the book to understand them. My pick for the book I would take from my childhood favourites to read and reread on a desert island for June was Bogwoppit by Ursula Moray Williams. When Aunt Lily marries and moves to America, orphan Samantha is packed off to her Aunt Daisy, who has no time for children.