Will I love The Box of Delights?

Another children’s book, but one that I first encountered in adulthood, and have wished ever since that some aunt or uncle or grandparent had known to give it to me as a present back when I was ten.

Masefield’s vein of fantasy makes this a strangely uncentered and whirling book, incorporating gangsters and fairies, spy planes and Roman legionaries, saloon bars in winter afternoons, and snowbound cathedrals. Through it all, it holds steady around the meanings of Christmas, and more than any other book in this list, it draws equally upon the Christian and pagan roots of the season. There’s… show more.

This might be the book that transformed me into a reader.

Masefield, also the UK’s one-time poet laureate, writes a magical Christmas adventure story about a boy called Kay who comes into possession of a magical box that allows the owner to shrink, move quickly, and even travel back in time. It’s full of scenes that stay with me even now and is such a rich, imaginative world. It deserves to be far better known!

It may contain the mention of a sword in passing.