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Impossible Creatures
(2023)(The first book in the Impossible Creatures series)
A novel by Katherine Rundell
2025 Libby Award for Best Middle Grade Book
2024 British Book Award Children's Fiction Book of the Year
2023 Waterstones Book of the Year
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two kids race to save the world’s last magical place in the first book of a landmark new fantasy series, from ‘a writer with an utterly distinctive voice and a wild imagination.’ (Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass)
‘An instant classic from one of the most gifted storytellers of our time, Impossible Creatures is an astonishing miracle of a book.’ —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal Winner for The One and Only Ivan
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR • A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, AND SHELF AWARENESS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
The day that Christopher saved a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake would change his life forever.
It’s the day he learned about the Archipelago—a cluster of unmapped islands where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years, until now. And it’s the day he met Mal—a girl on the run, in desperate need of his help.
Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying. They consult sphinxes, battle kraken, and negotiate with dragons. But the closer they get to the dark truth of what’s happening, the clearer it becomes: no one else can fix this. If the Archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.
Katherine Rundell’s story crackles and roars with energy and delight. It is brought vividly to life with more than 60 illustrations, including a map and a bestiary of magical creatures.
Genre: Children's Fiction
‘An instant classic from one of the most gifted storytellers of our time, Impossible Creatures is an astonishing miracle of a book.’ —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal Winner for The One and Only Ivan
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR • A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, AND SHELF AWARENESS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
The day that Christopher saved a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake would change his life forever.
It’s the day he learned about the Archipelago—a cluster of unmapped islands where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years, until now. And it’s the day he met Mal—a girl on the run, in desperate need of his help.
Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying. They consult sphinxes, battle kraken, and negotiate with dragons. But the closer they get to the dark truth of what’s happening, the clearer it becomes: no one else can fix this. If the Archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.
Katherine Rundell’s story crackles and roars with energy and delight. It is brought vividly to life with more than 60 illustrations, including a map and a bestiary of magical creatures.
Genre: Children's Fiction
Praise for this book
"Between the covers of Impossible Creatures is a world as enchanting, as perilous, as richly imagined as Narnia or Middle Earth." - Frank Cottrell-Boyce
"A rare and remarkable feat of glittering imagination from a truly masterful storyteller." - Catherine Doyle
"Flickers with a rare and fierce beauty - unputdownable." - Abi Elphinstone
"Katherine Rundell is a phenomenon. She not only understands what fantasy is for and why children (and the rest of us) need it, but she crafts original and brilliant books that delight readers of all ages and kinds, while stretching our minds and filling our hearts." - Neil Gaiman
"Fantastically exuberant, wildly imaginative, impossibly brilliant. Rundell's best, which is something to be marvelled at. It made me want to yell, or laugh, or bite something." - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
"There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell. Wondrous invention, marvellous writing. This book is her best yet, and that's saying something. Just riveting, quite extraordinary." - Michael Morpurgo
"A menagerie of delights. So packed with magic you'll want to take notes. Impossible Creatures is a world you'll want to move into." - Patrick Ness
"Katherine Rundell is a prodigiously gifted storyteller and IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES is wildly good. Spectacularly inventive, it is both a thrilling and page-turning epic and a clarion call to young readers to use the special gifts of childhood- love, courage, imagination and open-heartedness - to fight to save precious creatures of all kinds before they vanish before our eyes. My Book of the Year." - Lauren St John
"A fierce, fantastic, wild-hearted adventure that roars and bristles with imagination. I devoured it like a hungry dragon." - Sam Sedgman
"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
"A rare and remarkable feat of glittering imagination from a truly masterful storyteller." - Catherine Doyle
"Flickers with a rare and fierce beauty - unputdownable." - Abi Elphinstone
"Katherine Rundell is a phenomenon. She not only understands what fantasy is for and why children (and the rest of us) need it, but she crafts original and brilliant books that delight readers of all ages and kinds, while stretching our minds and filling our hearts." - Neil Gaiman
"Fantastically exuberant, wildly imaginative, impossibly brilliant. Rundell's best, which is something to be marvelled at. It made me want to yell, or laugh, or bite something." - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
"There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell. Wondrous invention, marvellous writing. This book is her best yet, and that's saying something. Just riveting, quite extraordinary." - Michael Morpurgo
"A menagerie of delights. So packed with magic you'll want to take notes. Impossible Creatures is a world you'll want to move into." - Patrick Ness
"Katherine Rundell is a prodigiously gifted storyteller and IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES is wildly good. Spectacularly inventive, it is both a thrilling and page-turning epic and a clarion call to young readers to use the special gifts of childhood- love, courage, imagination and open-heartedness - to fight to save precious creatures of all kinds before they vanish before our eyes. My Book of the Year." - Lauren St John
"A fierce, fantastic, wild-hearted adventure that roars and bristles with imagination. I devoured it like a hungry dragon." - Sam Sedgman
"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
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