The Wind on the Moon (37 page)

The Wind on the Moon
began as a story Linklater told his two daughters when they were caught in the rain on a walk. As his son describes it, “It was so good, such a wonderful and entrancing tale, that they begged him to write it down, and so he did.“ The book later won the Carnegie Medal and was nominated for best book of 1944. “Those dear children, bellowing their anger,“ wrote Linklater about his daughters' role in inspiring the story. “How grateful I was!“

NICOLAS BENTLEY (1907–1978) was an artist and author, and the art director for the publishing house André Deutsch, Ltd. He drew many pictures for magazines and books, including an early edition of T.S. Eliot's
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
, and was a well-known wit. Humor ran in his family: his father, Edmund Clerihew Bentley, invented the comic verse form known as a “clerihew“:

George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder
.

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

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Copyright © Eric Linklater 1944

Illustrations copyright © Nicolas Bentley

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Louise Fili Ltd.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:

Linklater, Eric, 1899–1974. The wind on the moon : a story for

children/written by Eric Linklater. Nicolas Bentley drew the pictures.

p. cm.—(New York Review children's collection)

Summary: In the English village of Midmeddlecum, sisters Dinah and

Dorinda struggle to keep their promise to try to be good when their father

goes off to war, but they soon get into a great deal of mischief.

ISBN 1-59017-100-4 (hardcover: alk. paper)

[1. Sisters — Fiction. 2. Fantasy.] I. Bentley, Nicolas, 1907–, ill.

II. Title. III. Series. PZ7.L66286Wi 2004

[Fic]—dc22

2004004187

eISBN 978-1-59017-433-3br /> v1.0

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