A teenage adventurer gets wrapped up in her father's dastardly schemes in this children's novel by the author of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Dido Twite is finally back 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 in the midst of another dastardly conspiracy: a Hanoverian 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 is the seventh book in the award-winning Wolves Chronicles, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Joan Aiken (1924-2004) was an English writer best known for her children's literature. She wrote 92 novels, including 27 for adults, as well as plays, poems, and short stories. Aiken was born in East Sussex, England. Her father, Conrad Aiken, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. She began writing at a young age, publishing her first short story when she was 17 years old. Before writing full-time, Aiken worked at the United Nations Information Centre as well as the magazine Argosy. It was during this time that she wrote her classic children's novel The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962), which won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award and was the first in a 12-book series. Her other titles for younger readers include The Last Slice of Rainbow, The Kitchen Warriors, and Mice and Mendelson. For older readers, her books include the Edgar Award-winning Night Fall, and The Scream. In 1999, Aiken was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to children's literature. She is survived by her daughter.