Arabel's Raven (Arabel and Mortimer Series)

Product Information

Rediscover the A Puffin Book series and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this highly anticipated edition of More Arabel and Mortimer.

Granny Jones arrives early in Rumbury. Mayor Cutlink takes her to the Town Hall and tells her she is to be May Queen. Arabel has lost her voice. Mrs. Jones wins the garden decorating competition by hanging tea cosies on bushes. Mortimer finds the master tape and the Joneses get the reward. Quentin Blake has been drawing ever since he can remember. He taught illustration for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, of which he is an honorary professor. He has won many prizes, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal, and in 1999 he was appointed the first Children’s Laureate. In the 2013 New Year’s Honours List he was knighted for services to illustration. Mortimer chases Mr. Leggitt and Cousin Perce Jones from Mallards' Bank. The ghost of Sir Humphrey Burbage leaves a farewell present for Mortimer and Arabel in the bank. Mrs. Jones faints, and while Arabel makes her tea, Mortimer burns his feathers on the hob. Mrs. Jones is worried about her husband's whereabouts, thinking he has been kidnapped.

Mayor Cutlink receives news of a gift from Pollyargos. Meanwhile, Mortimer finds some dough for the hole. Mr. Bonny decides to buy Tower Heights, in spite of the bats. Mortimer is keen to practise hitting the Professor's sculpture.

Granny Jones does some Christmas baking, and Arabel and Mortimer make Christmas decorations for Mallards' Bank. Two years were indeed to elapse while budgets were drawn up and decisions made as to whether Mortimer and Arabel really was to go ahead. Finally we got the green light.She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972). Mortimer is tired because he has been up all night guarding the Duke of Rumbury's ring and has shut Augustus, Granny Jones's cat, in a cupboard. There are six hilarious stories in this classic collection by the much-loved storyteller Joan Aiken and renowned illustrator Quentin Blake. Mr Jones decides to take the bird home to meet his daughter, Arabel, she'll know what to do - she loves animals!