The very idea of a book-loving family setting forth to explore the sources and settings of childhood's favorite books is in itself delightful. And when the intelligent curiosities of two cultivated grownups combine with the capacity for surprise and wonder of two wide-awake children, their discoveries are bound to have uncommon freshness and interest.

This book is the account of the Bodger family's discoveries, both hoped for and unexpected, during a summer's rambles in a small car in England and Scotland.

It is a travel book with a difference: for while it records vividly the actual sights and impressions and happenings of an imaginatively planned motor trip, it displays as well the landscape of legend and the scenes of great stories, peopled with all manner of unforgettable, unforgotten folk from King Arthur and Robin Hood to the Great Panjandrum, Squirrel Nut-kin, the Swallows and Amazons, and Leerie Licht the Lamps.

Joan Bodger is a genuine connoisseur of children's books, who has shared the delights of reading with her son and daughter from their earliest listening days. Now, in How the Heather Looks, she shares with adult readers the rich experience of seeing through her own observant eyes and those of her three responsive companions, the country and the people to which the children of the whole English-speaking world owe their most dearly loved books.

From the dust jacket