Wolves Chronicles 10 – Midwinter Nightingale

Joan Aiken's Midwinter Nightingale is a Wolves Chronicles story for 9 year olds that opens on a slow, rainy train with a boy trying very hard to keep a secret.

What happens

Simon is heading into wild, marshy country with his mare Magpie and an owl called Thunderbolt asleep in the luggage rack. He's been sent for, and he'd rather not say why. So of course the girl who sweeps into his compartment talks at him non-stop.

Her name is Jorinda. Within minutes she's told him about her brother's expulsions, her grandfather's fits and her father's fifteen years in prison. His crime? Being a werewolf. (She thinks it's terribly unfair, as he was born that way.)

Then Simon sees her slide a little booklet under her cat's cushion before the customs check. And when he fetches his saddlebags, there's a stranger's necklace buried in his horse's oats.

Meanwhile, in the Tower, Jorinda's father is being very charming to the prison doctor on his last night inside. Too charming. Where have all those pills been going?

And Simon's old friend Dido Twite, just back from Nantucket, is lowered off a ship in the dead of night for reasons nobody will explain.

This is an England that never was. The country has split into four kingdoms, the old king isn't expected to last much longer, and wolves howl across the Thames on foggy nights. It's all tangled secrets and it's SO atmospheric.

A couple of things to know first. The language takes some getting used to. Dido says things like "Croopus!" and "rabbit me", and the railwaymen and servants speak in thick old country talk. Confident readers will lap it up. Others might enjoy it more read aloud together.

There's also a hard moment early on for animal lovers. Simon finds sheep crammed so tightly into open cages on the train that some have died. He lets the rest out and leads them away with a whistle, which is lovely, but the scene before it is upsetting. The villain's old courtroom threats are gruesome too (very pantomime, but still).

Dido's father being killed by wolves gets a mention. That happened long before this story, so it's a sad memory rather than a shock.

What to read next

Simon and Dido are already firm friends here, as this comes later in the series. If they'd like another Wolves Chronicles story full of snow and hungry wolves, try The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, where a chilly new governess arrives at a great house on a winter night.