If ever a book were to keep an enthralled child awake long past their bedtime, it is Impossible Creatures
The story whips along and the characters are wonderful. Take Gelifen, the world’s last remaining griffin. No Lonesome George, Gelifen is cute, fierce, and partial to eating other people’s snot . For this is a book that engages with the entire experience of being human: the body and the mind are not separate entities, but wholly intertwined. Or, as one character puts it, “adventurers tend to smell”.takes a long and unblinking look at the existential terrors that face the next generation.
Rundell does not write down to her audience. If anything, she is writing up. “Children have been underestimated for hundreds of years,” she tells us, and the narrative is shot through with respect for the agency of youth. The language is marvellous: every page, practically every paragraph, holds treasure. Rundell’s hero, John Donne, invented new words, and words from Rundell’s pen feel new – at one point, a huge man is described as having “rhinocerosed” across a room, while of our heroine Mal, we are told, “there was something vivid about her, something tremendous, as if she was about to erupt”.
Visit any children’s section in a bookshop or library, and you will find endless celebrity-written series, easy to buy and to read, and, for the most part, easily forgotten.is their antidote. The first in a trilogy, the book is surely the next classic – and most importantly for any reasonable 10-year-old, it is a terrific story. What comes shining through is the sheer magnificence of possibility.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Katherine Ryan reveals message Transport Police sent after daughter was harassedKatherine's daughter is 14.
Read more »
Katherine Ryan reveals message Transport Police sent after daughter was harassedKatherine's daughter is 14.
Read more »
Katherine Ryan reveals message Transport Police sent after daughter was harassedKatherine's daughter is 14.
Read more »
Keir Starmer tells students abolishing tuition fees is 'impossible'KEIR Starmer told students that a Labour government had no plans to abolish tuition fees in England because the country could not afford it.
Read more »
ITV announce broadcast date for new Peter Sutcliffe drama series The Long ShadowKatherine Kelly, David Morrissey, Toby Jones, Daniel Mays and Jill Halfpenny will appear in The Long Shadow
Read more »
Sam Kerr: 'People only see the big highs I've had - football is never smooth sailing'The Chelsea and Australia striker speaks to i's Katherine Lucas about her World Cup injury heartbreak, dreams of winning the Champions League, and the resilience which has defined her glittering career
Read more »