The Whirling Shapes by Joan North #20BOS26-7

I have always enjoyed the type of fantasy where strange things start happening to ordinary people, and there were some series like Narnia or the Edward Eager books that I reread multiple times. But when I discovered a new author at the library – especially one who had written more than one book, I was always pleased. I remember finding a British author called Joan North at a local branch of the Boston Public Library, although I never saw her books anywhere else. She had written just three books that landed somewhere between middle grade and YA fiction. A few weeks ago I came across a box of books I hadn’t opened recently and found The Whirling Shapes.

The protagonist is 14-year-old Liz, who is fourteen and is spending a year in London with relatives while her mother is in a sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis. She arrives in time to attend an exhibition of her cousin James Mortlake’s art with her Aunt Liz, and is unimpressed by his studies of spirals and whirls from different angles. Liz is a little intimidated by her extremely organized aunt and attractive older cousin Miranda:

“Miranda will be longing to see you,” said Aunt Paula as they drew into the drive of 21 Arlington Crescent.

“I doubt it.” Liz climbed thankfully out of the car. “Miranda thinks I’m young and boring and I think she’s rather silly; I’m sure we shall hate living together.” Like most of her conversations with Aunt Paula, this was unspoken; she merely thought the words to herself.

In fact, once Liz settles in, she and Miranda develop a friendship but the person Liz most enjoys is their eccentric great-aunt, Hilda Harbottle, an anthropologist, who lives in the attic. Soon Liz realizes that the house she admires in the distance beyond the Crescent is not always there – this does not stop her from dreaming about it; in fact, quite the opposite. And when Liz finally tells Aunt Hilda that she really has seen this house, Aunt Hilda astounds her by saying the house is something she envisioned and has now appeared (at least occasionally). As if the disappearing house weren’t odd enough, other strange things start to happen: James, her temperamental artist cousin, is missing, fog begins to lurk around the house but does not extend past the garden gate, and Liz starts to see whirling shapes that become more hostile every day.

This book posed interesting contrasts between imagination and reality. When menaced by the mysterious shapes, Liz is afraid no one will believe her but tries to get help and cannot get a dial tone. They’ve been cut off from the world. Unlike Aunt Hilda, who grew up with an explorer father and is open to unexplained phenomena, Liz tries to cope by being calm and sensible as try to figure out what is happening.  The story becomes very confusing as the adventure she yearned for is quite a bit more than she can handle!

Title: The Whirling Shapes
Author: Joan North
Publication: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, hardcover, 1967
Genre: Juvenile fiction/fantasy
Source: Personal copy

Reading this book contributed to a challenge:

• 20 Books of Summer 2026