Joan Aiken was decorated with an MBE for her services to children's books. Her books are internationally acclaimed and she received the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the United States as well as the Guardian Award for Fiction in this country for The Whispering Mountain. Both that and Black Hearts in Battersea have been filmed.

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'Something dark and soft and suffocating was forced down. More (0 reviews) Review Book 3 Night Birds On Nantucket Shipwrecked Dido Twite, picked up by a whaling ship, finds herself many miles from home and facing deep troubles. Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken Black Hearts in Battersea book. But she seemed to have locked the door behind her and, as he. Amanda Craig, writing in The Times, said, 'She was a consummate story-teller, one that each generation discovers anew.' Her best-known books are those in the James III saga, of which The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was the first title, published in 1962 and awarded the Lewis Carroll prize. Black Hearts in Battersea 'Simon paid off the driver and turned to follow Mrs Twite. Joan Aiken wrote over a hundred books for young readers and adults and is recognized as one of the classic authors of the twentieth century. Her first children's novel, The Kingdom of the Cave, was published in 1960. Before joining the 'family business' herself, Joan had a variety of jobs, including working for the BBC, the United Nations Information Centre and then as features editor for a short story magazine. In 1999 Joan Aiken was awarded an MBE for her services to childrens books.

She was the daughter of the American poet, Conrad Aiken her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge, is also a novelist. Both that and Black Hearts in Battersea have been filmed.