Impossible Creatures

'There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell. Wondrous invention, marvellous writing.' - Michael Morpurgo

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There's a place where all the wildest stories began . From Katherine Rundell, winner of the Costa Children's Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize comes the first novel in a landmark trilogy for 9+ fans of His Dark Materials

It was a very fine day, until something tried to eat him.

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.

'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

'Katherine Rundell is a phenomenon.' - Neil Gaiman

'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 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

'My Book of the Year' - Lauren St. John