What to read after At the Back of the North Wind?

A charming and touching novel, "At the Back of the North Wind" was written in England by a former Congregationalist minister in the time of Queen Victoria. It is the story of a frail, impoverished child and his family facing difficult circumstances in Dickensian London. While on the surface it seems a simple story, it is a stylistically sophisticated mix of realism and surrealism with interposed extended dream passages, original fairy tales, and mantric nursery rhymes. Its clear purpose is in moral and religious education, written to affirm both the existence and goodness of God and the essential goodness of His creation. Never facile or preachy, the author confronts the presence of evil and adversity, and shows considerable psychological insight in the treatment of his characters.