'The Whispering Mountain' was one of my favourite books as a child. I must have read it quite a few times when I was young, but not since, and when I came to read it again I found I had completely forgotten the plot, other than it was an adventure story set in Wales and there was a mountain in it! But rereading it has reminded me why I loved the book so much in the first place.

Set in the same alternative nineteenth century world as 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase', 'The Whispering Mountain' follows the adventures of Owen Hughes, wrongly accused of stealing the fabled Harp of Teirtu, (including by his own grandfather). But as Owen tries to clear his name by recapturing the harp, he discovers that there are other people apart from the original thieves who are interested in finding it, from the Marquess of Malyn in his castle on the coast to the Seljuk of the far-off land of Rum who is showing a surprising interest in a remote corner of Wales. But once the harp is found who is its legal owner? The marquess is convinced that it should be him, as the harp was found in the ruins of the old monastery of St. Ennodawg, on land owned by the Marquess, but Owen's grandfather, curator of the local museum, has different ideas:

''I am sure your legal knowledge is of the highest excellence,’ said the Marquess with a disdainful smile. ‘But in this instance it will not be needed. The deed says, in the plainest manner, that the grant of the island is made, not in perpetuity, but merely “so long as the Order of Ennodawg shall continue”. But where is the Order now, Mr Hughes? I think you will not dispute that the monastery is in ruins and has been so for the last fifty years? What has become of its gardens, its cattle, its furnishings? Gone, burned, stolen, decayed. Where are its monks, pray?’
‘In China,’ said Mr Hughes unexpectedly.
‘What?’ The Marquess, for once, was quite taken aback. ‘In China?’ he repeated. ‘What do you mean?’'

This was the only Joan Aiken] that I read as a child (although I've read 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' since) and it's one that deserves to be much better known. It's really got everything that a children's adventure story needs: adventure, close shaves with danger, an evil marquess and some real sadness too. Highly recommended. ( )

After a legendary harp is discovered in a ruined Welsh monastery by his grandfather, young Owen Hughes must brave wild beasts, lost tribes, and desperate men to save the harp from a murderous lord.

This was charming and non-precious YA fantasy. I especially liked the process by which people initially antipathetic toward Owen (his grandfather, his school mates, the universe at large) become his allies. Instead of blinding (and vocalized) character epiphanies, they become grudgingly sympathetic only after Owen repeatedly demonstrates pluck and compassion -- and even then, it's just a conscious suppression of their innate dislike. ( )

When I was young I always loved books with a map. Re-reading it now it is the language that brings it to life for me. The London villains speak a kind of gibberish which is completely understandable without understanding individual words, the Seljuk is obviously translating word from word from Rummish and of course the English of the welsh speakers is a delight. ( )

This review is also available on my blog, Read Till Dawn.

I love Joan Aiken's books so much. Every year or so I go on an Aiken kick where I read a bunch of books in her amazing Wolves series. The thing about those books is that they always look so boring from the cover description and synopsis, but are actually amazing books full of humor, terror, mischief, and clever plot twists that make things fun. You always know the young main characters won't come to any real harm, but anyone else is fair game. Aiken's books are written for a less sheltered generation of children, where murder and terror are part of the story. This serves to increase the tension, and sweeten the reward.

Now for this specific book. I picked it up for a quarter at a flea market, very excited to find a Joan Aiken I hadn't read yet. I read it in one sitting (staying up a bit later than I really should have, more from an unwillingness to go to sleep than any driving desire to finish the book), and - well, and then I fell asleep. It was good, but it wasn't exactly thrilling.

This is a book with many pieces and people and plot devices, all rolled together in a way that makes things seem ridiculously complicated at first, but actually winds up fitting together perfectly in the end. There is a father and daughter team of gypsies, a nerdy-yet-inwardly-strong young boy, two nasty thieves, a prince, an evil Marquess (It took me a while to get it straight in my head that this is a male term), a monk, a foreign Seljuk (apparently some sort of Rajah), a bunch of dwarf-people, and many more wildly different characters. This is a story told in bits and pieces, where everyone pursues the truth from a different angle and then at the end of the book figure out the whole picture by talking to everyone else. This is a very clever way of telling the tale, because there are many "mini books" inside the big book, with the various main characters ducking and weaving throughout the stories of the other characters.

However, it's the story itself that just doesn't really appeal to me. Aiken is a genius at taking seemingly worn-out tales and making them fresh, but it just didn't happen for me with this one. Arabis is like a mix between Aiken's other main female characters, Sophie and Dido, and I have to say I like the others better. Ditto for Owen - I liked him, but I like Simon better. According to Goodreads this is book 0 in the Wolves chronicles (does that mean it's a prequel?). I don't really see how it fits in with the others at all, except for its similar time-setting. I love the later books far, far more, from the wonderful Wolves of Willoughby Chase that I first read in lower elementary school, to Black Hearts in Battersea, which is one of my later-discovered favorites.

If you love old-fashioned adventures full of danger, excitement, humor, and compelling characters, then I wholeheartedly recommend you read this series. I'm sure that many would like this book, but for me at least it just felt a bit too ordinary - and I kept getting flashbacks to George McDonald's The Princess and the Goblins. If you're a fan of the series and haven't gotten around to this one yet, then by all means read it. It's not that it's bad by any definition of the word - it's just not as good as many of the other books in the series. If you have never read a Joan Aiken and you want to, then start with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase or Black Hearts in Battersea. Trust me, you'll be happy you did. ( )

This was the fourth book in Aiken's James III sequence, but chronologically, it's a prequel, self-contained and entirely satisfying all on its ownsome. Full of wonderful Welsh dialect and phrases, it's an adventure set in the valleys and mountains and caves around Fig Hat Ben, the Whispering Mountain of the title.

We join the action more or less in full swing. Our hero Owen Hughes is bracing himself for a confrontation with some bullies, but soon has a lot more on his mind as the local Marquess has taken a hankering to take possession of the battered old golden harp found by Owen's grandfather, the curator of the local museum. Two thieves hired for the task make off with the harp, kidnapping Owen and making it look as though he is responsible. Aided by his friend, the herbalist daughter of an itinerant poet and an old wandering monk, Owen must retrieve the harp, capture the thieves, defeat the evil nobleman, help the mysterious people who live in the caves, rescue the Prince Of Wales and persuade his crotchety grandfather that he's not himself a villain.

Pure joyful adventure and escapism, this is thrilling and exciting and adventurous and packed with characters and incidents and ideas and mystery and atmosphere and all manner of good things. Fantastic. ( )