Grahame wrote only a few other pieces of fic-
tion, some of which is fantasy. The Golden Age
(1895) and Dream Days(1898) are collections of
short stories of varying quality, many of them fan-
tasy for children. The best of these is the novella
The Reluctant Dragon, published separately in
1938, the story of a young boy who finds a dragon
and befriends it despite its fearsome appearance.
Although his other work is clearly inferior to The
Wind in the Willows,it is frequently reprinted.
“The Wish” Roald Dahl(1951)
There are only a handful of writers who are consis-
tently able to look at the world from a child’s point
of view and use that vision to create stories that re-
flect that very distinct perspective. Lewis CARROLL
and Daniel Manus Pinkwater both come to mind,
and so does Roald Dahl, who wrote for both chil-
dren and adults and whose CHARLIE AND THE
CHOCOLATE FACTORY(1964) became the popular
film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.Al-
though in most cases he used this talent exclusively
for his younger audiences, on this occasion he en-
joyed the best of both worlds, a story decidedly for
adults but that depends on an interpretation of the
world that only a child could truly believe in.
The only character in the story, which is quite
short, is a young boy initially found standing at one
end of an enormous carpeted room. The carpet is
an elaborate, almost chaotic, tangle of three colors,
black, red, and yellow. The boy contrives a game
for himself. The red areas are lava, the black areas
are snakes, and only the yellow portions can be
safely traversed. His goal is to get from one end of
the room to the other without touching the two
dangerous colors, and he decides that if he does so,
he will be rewarded by the gift of a puppy on his
upcoming birthday.
An arduous crossing follows, with one near-
mishap after another. Halfway across he realizes he
is committed, but the game has become so real that
he feels genuine panic when he nearly falls, and the
black sections in particular seem to be moving of
their own volition. And then, of course, he does fi-
nally falter, and our last glimpse of him is as his
hand passes into the dark mass. Dahl wisely does
not describe what follows but simply leaves us with
the image of his mother searching fruitlessly for her
son. This quiet, understated little nightmare is brief
and to the point and captures perfectly one of the
irrational but common terrors of childhood.Witch World SeriesAndre Norton
(1963–2005)
Although Andre NORTONbegan her career as a
science fiction writer, she turned to fantasy almost
exclusively shortly after publishing Witch World
(1963), the first in a very long series now totaling
25 novels plus a handful of shared world antholo-
gies. The first novel is set in Estcarp, a land ruled
by benevolent witches, although later volumes
take place in different parts of her imaginary land,
with the characters frequently changing from book
to book. The conflict in the opening volume is be-
tween the witches and another race, the Kolder,
who are importing technological weapons from
their own universe in order to shift the balance of
power. Simon Tregarth, an adventurer from our
world, finds himself in Witch World and helps de-
feat the invaders, falling in love with a prominent
witch in the process. Since loss of innocence re-
sults in loss of magical powers, the witch faces a
difficult choice when she discovers that she is also
in love with him.
Although the novel is complete in itself, it was
so popular that Norton began producing sequels.
The Kolder launch a fresh attack in Web of the
Witch World(1964) and are similarly repulsed, and
Norton turned to a new cast of characters for the
third, Year of the Unicorn(1965), a much slower-
paced novel about a young woman who finds her-
self pledged in marriage to a shape-changer as part
of a political deal. This is a far more traditional
fantasy theme, handled with no distinction, and
may not have originally been intended to be part of
the series. Norton then introduced the children of
Tregarth and the witch, Jaelithe, in Three Against
the Witch World(1965), who rebel against the
rather overly structured society of Estcarp and
choose exile. They have separate adventures in
Warlock of the Witch Worldand (1967) Sorceress of
the Witch World(1968), and a similar young man
goes through a rite of passage in The Crystal
Gryphon(1972).386 “The Wish”