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Chance in the form of an entrance exam needing more Latin than I possessedsent me to art school rather than to the university. Chance in the form of a small daughter who wanted to be told stories, rather than have them read to herturned me back to the idea of writing. I like writing for children because I love telling stories of adventure and fantasy.

I don't set out to instruct or preach, but it is impossible to write without one's own views showing. I can only hope my heart and my morals are in the right place. Eccleshare postulated that perhaps for Alcock the feeling was that you "could only have one such creative force in a house at a time. Alcock's first book, The Haunting of Cassie Palmer, is a tale about the seventh child of a seventh child who has spiritual powers.

Cassie Palmer has unhappily inherited her magical abilities from her mother and she longs to be a normal and average teenager—just like her friends.

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However, one day, on a dare, Cassie conjures up a ghost who refuses to leave her alone. A reviewer in Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books described The Haunting of Cassie Palmer as "an impressive first novel from a British writer, with a fusion of realism and fantasy that is remarkably smooth. Most of Alcock's novels contain elements of fantasy and the supernatural.

In The Stonewalkers, lonely and friendless Poppy Brown pours her feelings out to a statue that suddenly comes to life. Unfortunately, the statue is mean and destructive and Poppy struggles to stop the statue's trail of terror. Alcock explained her thoughts on writing about fantasy and the supernatural to Amanda Smith in an interview in Publishers Weekly: "Oddly enough, I've never had a supernatural experience, and I don't even think I quite believe in them, but I find a ghost or supernatural element is a marvelous catalyst.

It can be a sort of an echo of a character, like a shadow thrown out before them, showing back part of their own image. Most ghosts are very pitiful objects, so a child can learn compassion. But it's also fun in a book. It gives a little chill—binds a book together. James Guide to Young Adult Writers noted of The Stonewalkers that an "exciting chase scene and a long captivity in a cave with the dangerous statues mark high points in this book, a favorite with young readers.

Wilson wrote: "The author skillfully creates a sense of escalating horror. The blending of suspenseful fantasy and elements of the contemporary problem novel works remarkably well here, and may appeal to children not ordinarily attracted to fantasy literature. For her third book, The Silvia Game: A Novel of the Supernatural, Alcock "turned toward a more direct focus on family and values," according to the writer for St.

James Guide to Young Adult Writers. Once again, as in her two previous novels, the author presents a young protagonist alienated from her parents. Here Alcock features an irresponsible parent, a painter, whose daughter thinks that he might be involved in a forgery. This young girl, Emily, in turn resembles a Renoir portrait, and such a resemblance involves her in friendships with an heir and with an illegitimate son.

Critics have consistently praised Alcock's books. Whether it was the suspenseful mystery involving the supernatural and art forgery in The Sylvia Game, the attempt of two circus children to save an old elephant from the slaughterhouse in Travellers by Night, the exciting collection of stories found in Ghostly Companions: A Feast of Chilling Tales, the fascinating tale of separated sisters in The Cuckoo Sister, the untold story dramatically revealed in The Mysterious Mr.

Ross, the experiments in genetic engineering in The Monster Garden, or the evil and secrecy in The Trial of Anna Cotman, Alcock's books have been recognized for their intriguing stories and endearing characters. For example, Travellers by Night was dubbed a "charming quest story" by the writer for St. Nor did Alcock always deal in the supernatural; The Cuckoo Sister "avoids fantasy altogether," according to Tucker, and was "one of [Alcock's] best novels.

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Summing up the author's many strengths, Geoffrey Trease commented in the Times Literary Review that "Alcock is unsentimental, but there is an unmistakable depth of feeling in her deft handling of her very human and imperfect characters. She is writing of fear and courage, exploring the ambivalent relationships of parent and child, boy and girl, boy and boy.

The contemporary juvenile dialogue rings true, and there is felicity in the descriptive phrasing. Burns similarly wrote in Horn Book: "Vivien Alcock has the uncanny ability to create stories of suspense with overtones of fantasy which are firmly grounded in reality. Her timing is impeccable; her characters are unforgettable; her imagery is as subtle as it is precise.

Her books begin with a bang almost on page one and they hurtle at breakneck pace to a thundering climax. Where other authors linger over physical descriptions of character and setting, Alcock is more concerned with keeping the action moving. Yet at the same time she's very aware of the inner, emotional life that her characters are leading. With the title, A Kind of Thief, Alcock returned to her earlier theme of the difficulties of an adolescent caused in part by a parent who is outside of society's norms, yet Alcock does so while eschewing supernatural interventions.

Here the father in question is not merely on the fringes of society, but is actually in jail. Elinor's father goes to prison for some illegal business deal, and no sooner is he carted off than his second wife—Elinor's step-mother—leaves for Italy, taking her young son with her. Elinor and her other siblings are sent to stay with various relatives and she goes to live with her father's cousin, Aggie.

But once there, it seems that she may be more closely involved with this family than she thought. Soon it looks as though the contents of her father's suitcase which Elinor has gotten back from Victoria Station might contain money stolen from Aggie's mother; such a suspicion leads her to question her own nature and that of each of her relatives.

In the end, however, Elinor is able to accept herself and her family for what they are in this novel "infused with a bittersweet seriousness," as a reviewer for Publishers Weekly described the novel.

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The same writer further noted that the book was a "pulse-quickening read," and that Alcock "writes some of the smartest, most engrossing YA fiction around. Returning to the supernatural in Singer to the Sea God, Alcock lends a new twist to the Perseus myth. Elizabeth S. Watson, a reviewer in Horn Book, called the story "fresh" in its approach.

Watson also stated, "The setting and text remain true to the epic style" and the book is "a fine, fast-paced story. The uncanny is the theme in Alcock's Stranger at the Window, a story in which eleven-year-old Lesley sees a ghost in her neighbor's attic. Her own first book published was The Haunting of Cassie Palmerfrom Methuen in when she was 56 years old.

She followed The Haunting with The Stonewalkers and about twenty others. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. English writer. This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.

Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Although she had enjoyed storytelling and novels since she was a child, Alcock was shy about trying to be a published author and was content to stay in the background behind her famous author husband, Leon Garfield. However, she did occasionally give him ideas for his books, such as the popular Smith stories.

It was not untiltherefore, that she finally published her first novel for teenagers, The Haunting of Cassie Palmer. Alcock continued writing fantasies, ghost stories, and mysteries throughmany of which proved popular with teens and some of which were adapted to television as movies and series.