“Method and prophylactics have revolutionized modern witchcraft.”
—Mary Norton
British author Mary Norton, perhaps best known for creating The Borrowers (coming up next in these rereads)spent a happy childhood in the English countryside. She later claimed that her shortsightedness had a strong influence on her work: rather than looking at far away things, she focused on tree roots and grasses, wondering what small creatures might be hiding there. In 1927 she married Robert Norton and lived with him in Portugal until the outbreak of World War II. The war separated the family and forced Norton to return to England, shuttling between the dangers of wartime London and periods in the country. It was this background that shaped her first books for children, The Magic Bed Knob and Bonfires and Broomsticks, later combined into a single book, Bed-Knob and Broomstick.
[Cannibals. Why did it have to be cannibals?]