Welcome to Litsy!

This weekend I went to exibition sharing an eye of how children are portayed in (children‘s) literature - often as enfant terribles. It was very interesting.
Can you guess the books portrayed in the two smaller pictures?

Would I have enjoyed this book in the same way if I'd read it when bought, 40 years ago? No, certainly not. Would I have enjoyed it at all? That's a harder question. I think so, but being then nearer to childhood, and inhabiting similarly closely-bounded emotional territory as the MCs, I'm not sure what I'd've made of it. Better, I think, that I read it now.
Despite a certain inevitability, the end was still a bit of a shock. I'm left feeling pity

Tempted though I was to read another sci fi with a Bruce Pennington cover, I decided to mix it up and read this book, which has been on my to-read-pile since 1982. Nice old 🐧, vintage 1967, illustrated by Cocteau himself, and inspiration for the name of one of my favourite bands, The Cocteau Twins. It's not before time.