Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
My thoughts:
OH WOW! This is the book I’ve been waiting for for many years. It’s sure to be a huge success. From the first few sentences to the very last word, it is both written and reading perfection.
Magical. Easily as wonderful as Philip Pullmans [book:Northern Lights|70947] it’s Narnia for todays reader.
Perfect for all ages 9 – 99. The story of Christopher, a normal boy from a normal world who enters the magic world of impossible creatures and meets a very special girl called Mal who can fly.
Peopled with wondrous creatures many of whom are a little familiar to anyone who has read myth or fairy tales or fantasy. Of course there are Unicorns, dragons (LOVED Jac) an absolutely adorable baby griffin who nibbled a bit of my heart away.
Yet there are many many more fantastic creatures, superb characters and a brilliant story. All written in a way that swept me away without any superfluous, or complicated plot to confuse and spare yet precise writing which is just magnificent. Am I overdoing the superlatives? No I don’t think so, this, without doubt is THE most magical book I have read in the past couple of decades.
The Blurb
A boy called Christopher is visiting his reclusive grandfather when he witnesses an avalanche of mythical creatures come tearing down the hill. This is how Christopher learns that his grandfather is the guardian of one of the ways between the non-magical world and a place called the Archipelago, a cluster of magical islands where all the creatures we tell of in myth live and breed and thrive alongside humans. They have been protected from being discovered for thousands of years; now, terrifyingly, the protection has worn thin, and creatures are breaking through.
Then a girl, Mal, appears in Christopher’s world. She is in possession of a flying coat, is being pursued by a killer and is herself in pursuit of a baby griffin. Mal, Christopher and the griffin embark on an urgent quest across the wild splendour of the Archipelago, where sphinxes hold secrets and centaurs do murder, to find the truth—with unimaginable consequences for both their worlds. Together the two must face the problem of power, and of knowledge, and of what love demands of us.
