In Salad Days a magic piano is entrusted to Jane and Timothy by a passing tramp. Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring from his cousin Bilbo and is told by Gandalf to take care of it. For Bertie Wooster in The Code of the Woosters the MacGuffin is an 18th century silver cow-creamer. It is an old and tried literary genre.
There must be hundreds of examples but I came across a new one recently. Here’s the scoop. I knew about John Masefield as a Poet Laureate and can recite parts of Sea-Fever and Cargoes. I did not know that he wrote children’s books. He published The Box of Delights in 1935 but it never cropped up on my reading list when I was a child. However, it has remained a favourite for many and author Piers Torday loves it. He is the son of Paul Torday, author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, etc. and himself writes stories for children. The plot of the Box fits fair and square into the genre.
Kay Harker is returning from boarding school when he finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box. It allows the owner to shrink in size, to fly swiftly, to go into the past and to experience the magical wonders contained within the box.
The current owner of the box is an old Punch and Judy man called Cole Hawlings whom Kay meets at the railway station. They develop an instant rapport, which leads Cole to confide that he is being chased by a magician called Abner Brown and his gang, which includes Kay’s former governess. For safety, Cole (who turns out to be the medieval philosopher and alleged magician Ramon Llull) entrusts the box to Kay. The schoolboy then goes on to have many adventures as he protects the box from those who wish to use it for bad deeds. (Wikipedia)
Piers has adapted it for the stage and it is on at Wilton’s Music Hall this Christmas. It sounds a lot of fun if you have some children to take to the show or want to awaken your own inner child. When the wolves were running …