A review by literatehedgehog
Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson

3.0

Ibbotson lives in the particular niche of English magical story between Edward Eager, Hugh Lofting, and Diana Wynne Jones. Her stories appreciate children - they are real people who do sometimes good, sometimes horrible things - and give them exciting adventures. Generally, children think in black and white, especially "fair" and "not fair", and this particular novel combines that thought process with treatment of animals and nature, and of course, a fair bit of the fantastic. While I loved all of that, I resisted some other parts. Perhaps Ibbotson misses the days of E. Nesbit and Roald Dahl - because some actions, especially comments by some adults, were uncomfortably old-fashioned. One might even feel a little squidgy about nearly sexist, racist implications. In some ways, the older English feel of fantastic events in our world was nostalgically wondrous, but it others it was uncomfortably out-dated. I've only read one other Ibbotson, so I don't want to wholly generalize, but I worry this is just part of her style. (I read Which Witch, where an evil wizard sets a contest to find an appropriately evil witch to marry - a little tongue in cheek about love and marriage, but quite hetero-traditional).