'‘Nan, will you read to me before I go to sleep?’ And I wonder what the choice will be. When I have read before at bedtime to my granddaughter, she has handed me a book from her collection. It may have been read to her previously by her mother or it may be one she has read to herself but is still a ‘good read’. Most of these stories are so different to those I read 74 years ago as an 11 year old — novels by LM Montgomery and Louisa M Alcott, Girls’ Own Annual Stories etc.' (Introduction)