Impossible Creatures
'There Was Tolkien, There is Pullman and Now There is Katherine Rundell' - Michael Morpurgo
1st Edition
Published on 14. September 2023
368 pages
978-1-4088-9742-3 (ISBN)
Description
'There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell. Wondrous invention, marvellous writing.' - Michael Morpurgo
There's a place where all the wildest stories began ... The first novel in the award winning and globally best-selling Impossible Creatures series is the story of two children's epic adventure to transform the world.
Read the stunning sequel to Impossible Creatures: book 2, The Poisoned King, is OUT NOW!
Christopher is stunned when he discovers a Way-Between from our world to the Archipelago: a cluster of magical islands where all the creatures of myth still live and breed and thrive in their thousands. There he meets Mal: a girl from the islands, who is in possession of a flying coat and a baby griffin, and who is being pursued by a killer. Together they embark on an urgent quest to discover why the creatures are suddenly perishing, voyaging across the wild splendour of the Archipelago, where sphinxes hold secrets and centaurs do murder, in a bid to save both the islands and the world beyond them from a rising evil - before it's too late.
* THE TIMES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * THE DAILY TELEGRAPH CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER IN SEPTEMBER 2023
* BRITISH BOOK AWARDS CHILDREN'S FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR * WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER * BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS' AWARD WINNER * FOYLES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR * SHORTLISTED FOR AMAZON KIDS AND YA BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Full of adventures, wonderful side characters, new lands and so many fantastic creatures. I heartily recommend it to readers of all ages' - Rick Riordan
'A book stuffed full of fantastical, magical delight, and a world of richly imagined wonder' - Cressida Cowell
'Rundell's first foray into fantasy is both a deft, rich homage to the greats of children's literature and an absorbing, profoundly poignant quest story for those aged 9+ - quite possibly her best yet' - The Guardian
'A marvellous, imaginative fantasy told with great style and sparkle - a book to race through in a day and keep for a lifetime' - Jacqueline Wilson
'The world of this new book is so intriguing and so well put together that I couldn't resist it. Readers who already know her books will seize this with delight, and new readers will love it and demand all her others at once' - Philip Pullman
'A masterpiece to rival Tolkien and Pullman' - The Daily Telegraph
'Fantastically exuberant, wildly imaginative, impossibly brilliant. Rundell's best, which is something to be marvelled at' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
'Between the covers of Impossible Creatures is a world as enchanting, as perilous, as richly imagined as Narnia or Middle Earth' - Frank Cottrell-Boyce
'Rundell's book packs a punch with imagination and creativity in its purest form. She has created a story with potential to be adored by fantasy lovers for years to come' - The Independent
'With a delightful cast of characters, breathless adventure, and an abundance of myth and magic, Impossible Creatures offers the very best of fantasy' - Aisha Bushby
'A fierce, fantastic, wild-hearted adventure that roars and bristles with imagination. I devoured it like a hungry dragon' - Sam Sedgman
'A rare and remarkable feat of glittering imagination from a truly masterful storyteller' - Catherine Doyle
'The action is gripping. Every sentence sparkles. You can feel the flutter of griffin feathers and the menace of strange poisonous shrews. Magnificent' - The Times
'Surely the next classic' - The I
There's a place where all the wildest stories began ... The first novel in the award winning and globally best-selling Impossible Creatures series is the story of two children's epic adventure to transform the world.
Read the stunning sequel to Impossible Creatures: book 2, The Poisoned King, is OUT NOW!
Christopher is stunned when he discovers a Way-Between from our world to the Archipelago: a cluster of magical islands where all the creatures of myth still live and breed and thrive in their thousands. There he meets Mal: a girl from the islands, who is in possession of a flying coat and a baby griffin, and who is being pursued by a killer. Together they embark on an urgent quest to discover why the creatures are suddenly perishing, voyaging across the wild splendour of the Archipelago, where sphinxes hold secrets and centaurs do murder, in a bid to save both the islands and the world beyond them from a rising evil - before it's too late.
* THE TIMES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * THE DAILY TELEGRAPH CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER IN SEPTEMBER 2023
* BRITISH BOOK AWARDS CHILDREN'S FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR * WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER * BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS' AWARD WINNER * FOYLES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR * SHORTLISTED FOR AMAZON KIDS AND YA BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Full of adventures, wonderful side characters, new lands and so many fantastic creatures. I heartily recommend it to readers of all ages' - Rick Riordan
'A book stuffed full of fantastical, magical delight, and a world of richly imagined wonder' - Cressida Cowell
'Rundell's first foray into fantasy is both a deft, rich homage to the greats of children's literature and an absorbing, profoundly poignant quest story for those aged 9+ - quite possibly her best yet' - The Guardian
'A marvellous, imaginative fantasy told with great style and sparkle - a book to race through in a day and keep for a lifetime' - Jacqueline Wilson
'The world of this new book is so intriguing and so well put together that I couldn't resist it. Readers who already know her books will seize this with delight, and new readers will love it and demand all her others at once' - Philip Pullman
'A masterpiece to rival Tolkien and Pullman' - The Daily Telegraph
'Fantastically exuberant, wildly imaginative, impossibly brilliant. Rundell's best, which is something to be marvelled at' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
'Between the covers of Impossible Creatures is a world as enchanting, as perilous, as richly imagined as Narnia or Middle Earth' - Frank Cottrell-Boyce
'Rundell's book packs a punch with imagination and creativity in its purest form. She has created a story with potential to be adored by fantasy lovers for years to come' - The Independent
'With a delightful cast of characters, breathless adventure, and an abundance of myth and magic, Impossible Creatures offers the very best of fantasy' - Aisha Bushby
'A fierce, fantastic, wild-hearted adventure that roars and bristles with imagination. I devoured it like a hungry dragon' - Sam Sedgman
'A rare and remarkable feat of glittering imagination from a truly masterful storyteller' - Catherine Doyle
'The action is gripping. Every sentence sparkles. You can feel the flutter of griffin feathers and the menace of strange poisonous shrews. Magnificent' - The Times
'Surely the next classic' - The I
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Children/juvenile
Interest Age: From 8 to 12 years
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-9742-3 (9781408897423)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Katherine Rundell
Impossible Creatures
'There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell' - Michael Morpurgo
Book
08/2024
Bloomsbury Childrens Books
€11.50
Available immediately
Katherine Rundell
Impossible Creatures
'There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell' - Michael Morpurgo
Book
09/2023
Bloomsbury Childrens Books
€19.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Katherine Rundell is a multi-million-bestselling author whose novels for children have won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children's Book Award, among many others. She is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College and a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, where she works on Renaissance literature. Her books for adults include Super-Infinite, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize. Very occasionally she goes climbing across the rooftops of Oxford, late at night.
Content
- Cover
- Half-title
- Books by Katherine Rundell
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of the Archipelago
- The Beginning
- The Beginning, Elsewhere
- Arrival
- Arrival, Elsewhere
- Frank Aureate
- Before the Murderer
- The Forbidden Hilltop
- The Dying of the Light
- The One Place You May Not Go
- The Murder
- The Stampede
- The Guardian's Secret
- The Dog in the Water
- Phosphorescence
- Archipelago
- The Arrival of Unicorns
- The Neverfear
- A Stark and Shining Blue
- The Flying Senate
- Fidens Nighthand's Preferred Drinking Establishment
- Fire in the Sky
- Repair
- Kraken
- The City of Scholars
- The Sphinx Peninsula
- The Opposite of Falling
- The Written Mountain
- Four Riddles
- The Man Who Said No
- An Eruption of Violence
- Malum, Apple
- Leaving
- Gelifen
- The Worst Question
- A Piece of Complicating and Unwelcome News
- The Island of the Immortal
- The Heat of Living Gold
- The Island of Murderers
- The Stink of Manticore Breath
- Fidens Nighthand
- Dryads
- The Potion
- No Mortal Has Ever Returned
- The Maze
- The Grey Mist
- At the Centre
- The Immortal
- Flight
- The Funeral March
- The Kindness of Sphinxes
- The Beginning, Again
- Christopher's Journey
- What She Said
- The Guardian's Bestiary
- A bonus story from the world of the Archipelago: The Centaur's Spectacles
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
