The 13 Clocks and The Wonderful O

The Thirteen Clocks is a mixture of fairy tale, parable, and poetry. It has everything to please everybody. There is a princess in distress, a prince in disguise, a wicked uncle, and a last minute race between good and evil which is as exciting as any thriller. James Thurber wrote it, when he was supposed to be writing something quite different, because he couldn’t help himself, which must be why it bubbles with gaiety and wit, and why everybody who has read it immediately wants to read it all over again. The Wonderful O, the second story in this book, is about two abominable villains, a man with a map and a man with a ship, who sail to the island of Coroo in search of treasure and, when they can’t find it, revenge themselves on the gentle inhabitants by banning everything with an O in it. First they take the O’s out of all the words and then they start forbidding such things as dogs, cottages, coconuts, and dolls. They are just getting round to forbidding mothers when the islanders decide there are four things with an O in them that must not be lost. Three of them are ‘hope’, and ‘love’ and ‘valour’. The fourth and most important is really the whole point of The Wonderful O, which is a wonderful book.