intertext

I don't know if this book is forgotten, per se, since it's still in print and available on Amazon, but I loved The Owlstone Crown (http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-1932425357-0) by X. J. Kennedy when I was a kid. It's also got some quite dark sections, as I recall - one that vividly stood out in my mind was when the two child protagonists are starving and encounter a group of ?peasants who give them a tomato to eat, and they devour it as if it were an apple. I think I was particularly moved/horrified by that because I hated tomatoes so much when I was a kid ;) But anyway! It also has a character named Fardels Bear (har dee har har - I didn't get the joke until much later, of course) and creepy stone owls for the bad guy's army. I believe there's also a sequel, but I don't remember much about it.

I'm also glad that the Harry Potter effect has meant that Joan Aiken's books have nearly all been reissued :)