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List Price: $5.95 | | Publisher: Sandpiper
Salesrank: 1058767
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Editorial Review:
Readers who have followed Dido Twite"s escapades in Black Hearts in Battersea and Nightbirds on Nantucket will welcome her return in another wild adventure.
Now back in print, Dido and Pa continues the Wolves Chronicles, the exhilarating and imaginative series that stemmed from Joan Aiken"s classic The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.
Dido Twite is finally back home in London and reunited with her old friend Simon, now the Duke of Battersea and a favorite of King Richard. But no sooner does Dido start to settle in than her rascally father, Abednago, appears and drags her off into the night. Soon Dido finds herself caught up in the midst of another dastardly Hanoverian conspiracy: a plot involving a mysterious double for the king, the miraculous healing powers of music, and a spy network made up of abandoned street children called lollpoops. Meanwhile, out in the forest, starving wolves are closing in on the city . . .
Dido and Pa Reviews:
The critical link in the chain 
2008-01-14 - If you're working your way through the 'Wolves of Willoughby Chase' series, then you'll naturally want to read this book right after 'The Cuckoo Tree'. But there are more reasons to do so than just to keep things in sequence. Believe me, I got out of sequence and am reading it after all the others, and I'm wishing I hadn't!
'Dido and Pa' actually ties together all the strands of the series, and clarifies the relationships between the various characters, so it's a real lynchpin. If you read it in the right order, there'll be a heap of questions that will never even occur to you, whereas those same questions bothered me throughout the whole series until I got to this volume.
Having said that, the main reason you'd want to read 'Dido and Pa' of course is that Joan Aiken was such a terrific wordsmith and had such a fantastic ear for dialogue! This is a captivating book (though maybe a little black for younger readers) and will grip you from beginning to end.
And in case you've been wondering what kind of musical instrument Dido's father plays, 'hoboy' is an old English expression for an oboe!
Alternative history and adventure 
2006-07-04 - I loved it - plenty of action and an interesting twist on history with a strong female lead. Great reading for all
Dido in her element
2004-10-13 - At long last Dido Twite is back in London, though perhaps not as she anticipated she'd be. Unexpectedly reunited (much to her delight) with her old friend Simon, now the Sixth Duke of Battersea, she has been spirited away from him by her rascally father Abednego, who with most of his family killed in the destruction of Battersea Castle has become Music Master to the Hanoverian Ambassador. The position is not unearned--for all his bad qualities, Mr. Twite is a brilliant composer and a performer of note on the hoboy, whose music often brightened Dido's younger days even though he always favored her much older sister Penny. But, quite naturally, the Ambassador is also a pivotal player in the ongoing Hanoverian plots against the Stuart throne, so Mr. Twite's politics mesh nicely with his employer's. Unfortunately for them both, "Bonnie Prince Georgie" (the King George IV of our universe) has recently died without issue, so what's a Hanoverian plotter to do? The answer's plain: find a way to become the power behind the throne. And this the Ambassador has done, with a Dutch double for King Richard IV. With the help of a network of street urchins and a young artist who is in love with Simon's sister Sophie, Dido contrives once again to foil the plot, though not without a few near escapes, and in the process is reunited with Penny and with what seems to be a younger half-sister, the oddly-named Is. She is also overlooked by a blind apple seller who has a gift of foreseeing and declares that he "can see crossed sparkling lines over her head, and a whole shower of lucky stars...a gold crown in her hand...and a velvet carpet under her foot." Take good care of her, he warns Mr. Twite, or the luck will turn for you...
The high point of this installment in the Wolves Chronicles is the quirky relationship between Dido and her father, which is portrayed in a rich series of vignettes between them, cunningly spotted along the course of the tale to provide breaks in the otherwise headlong action. Aiken also shows her usual Dickensian gift in her portrayal of London street life and her creation of villains you love to hate--though Mr. Twite has his sympathetic moments. As the book closes, he has met the fate the apple-seller warned him of, Sophie and her gallant have come to an understanding, and Simon shyly suggests that perhaps Dido will "think about being Duchess of Battersea one day." A satisfying conclusion to Dido's extended globe-trotting.
Dido Twite: Role model
2004-08-18 - I read these books when I was much younger, and re-read them every time I come back to my parents' house. They are incredibly well written; characters, plot, and dialogue are all wonderfully done.
Dido is possibly one of the best female children's characters ever written, and I'd even argue that she's one of the best female characters ever, forget children's books. She is resourceful, irreverent, intelligent, moral, funny, and completely unsanitized. I love all of the books in this series, but this one is my favorite.
The only reason that these could be called "children's" books is that there's no sex. They absolutely do not underestimate the intelligence of the reader. Joan Aiken writes young adult novels in the style of Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander -- these books are terrifying, beautiful, chilling, funny and intelligent in a way that children's books no longer are and *should* be. Joan Aiken will be sorely missed.
Dido strikes again
2003-07-29 - This is a lovely adventurous book that will suck you right into the story. I must say however that after the Auther finished writing the other books in the series I think she sort of ran out of ideas. This book brings back Dido Twite the heroine from three of the previous books. She is back in England and meets up with her infamous father once with him she stumbles on a hanoravian plot(again!) that is trying to dispose of the King. Held prisoner by her father and the other hanoravians Dido must find a way to escape and save the day. Helped along by some old friends and a host of new charecters you can be sure Dido will, through wit and daring once again becomes Englands youngest hero. I gave this book four stars because it is a very exciting and enjoyable read. Even more so if you have not read the others in the series that star Dido. For those of you that have well all I can say is read this book fully expecting a similiar plot to several of the others and enjoy it for its interesting new charecters and to be able to reconnect with some of the interesting old ones.
