Elsie Piddock Slips In Her Sleep by Eleanor Farjeon was first published in 1937, but my copy of the book was published by Candlewick Press in 1997. It is illustrated by Charlotte Voake and it’s a cute wee volume measuring just 7.5 inches by 4.5 inches (19 by 11.5 cm) with just 61 pages.

This is a bit of a fairy tale. Elsie Piddock lives in Glynde under Caburn where a lot of other little girls live too, and they mainly survive on bread and butter because their mothers can’t afford much more for them to eat. That doesn’t stop them from having fun though and as Elsie grows up she hears the older girls skipping after school, she’s looking forward to being old enough to join them out there.

When Elsie starts to practise skipping using her father’s braces her mother realises that it’s something she’s really good at, she has potential to be a champion skipper, so they buy her a proper skipping rope. Everyone’s amazed at Elsie’s skipping prowess and by the time she was seven years old even the fairies had heard of Elsie and her skipping. Andy Spandy (truly!) the Skipping Master teaches Elsie new ways of skipping and before long she’s better than any of the fairies.

The local hill Mount Caburn is the venue for skipping and years later the land is under threat from a greedy new landowner, he intends to build a factory there, but he doesn’t bargain on having to deal with the by now 109 year old Elsie.

This is a lovely tale for all ages.