Blog Nº 56
“I need you to tell people this; I need you, when you get back, to tell them: the brutality is terrible. And yes: the chaos is very great. But tell them: greater than the world’s chaos are its miracles.”
“There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell” says Michael Morpurgo in his review of Impossible Creatures. Other glowing reviews place her alongside JK Rowling, C.S Lewis and Lewis Caroll for this remarkable work full of imagination, magical delight and wonder. I suspect that the fantasy realm of The Archipelago revealed to us in Impossible Creatures will join Narnia, Hogwarts, Neverland and Middle-Earth and many more in the fantasy hall of fame in no time at all.
Impossible Creatures follow Christopher Forrester, who has been sent up to Scotiand to stay with his grandfather. One day he rescues, somewhat in disbelief, a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake and suddenly his life changes irrevocably. The adventure that follows takes him to The Archipelago, a hidden cluster of islands where mythical creatures and humans still live side-by-side. There he meets and befriends mysterious girl on the run Mal with whom he will transform the destiny of not just The Archipelago but the world in its entirety.
Given the name of the novel I feel like I must discuss the creatures encountered by Christopher and Mal as the story weaves its course. Some will be familiar to us all – dragons, unicorns, centaurs, krakens, griffins, mermaids, sphinxes – but there are even more that Rundell introduces us to, inspired by myths and legends from histories and cultures spanning the entire globe. Never before had I heard of the al-miraj, a large horned hare, first mentioned in medieval Arabic literature. Rundell describes them as possessing dazzling beauty and as seekers of the wise and the good. Longmas, originally of Chinese mythology, are winged scaled horses that boast breathtaking speeds and strength.
Both Christopher and myself as the reader were almost the most astonished to read about the most harmless creatures in the novel, the Borometz, also known as the vegetable lamp. Originating from seventeenth-century legend in Central Asia, Borometz’ are zoophytes (animal plants) thought to grow sheep as their plants. Connected to the plant by a tendril / umbilical cord, once the sheep has grazed the land around the plant both itself and the plant will die. Therefore, kindly folk in The Archipelago carry seeds with them at all times to plant around a Borometz when they encounter one. Readers will be pleased to know that Impossible Creatures begins with a incredibly handy and beautifully illustrated ‘Guardians Bestiary’ so you can get to grips with the bewildering range of creatures you are soon to meet.
While classified as a children’s/young adult novel, Impossible Creatures can be enjoyed by all ages, much like Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter and Wendy, The Chronicles of Narnia and others classified in the same way. It takes great skill as a writer to create something multilayered and engaging to read for such a wide audience. It was a joy to see someone’s imagination bursting forth to portray such a unique world filled with vibrant, quirky characters, sharply funny lines and a gripping overarching plot. You know that a book is good when you feel like you’ve entered its world yourself and that each time you have to put it down is a lingering struggle.
As we head into a cold and wet British autumn you might be in need of an escape from the banalities of everyday life, particularly if you are in your grown-up stage of life – Impossible Creatures will do that for you and more.
Happy reading,
Imo x
ImoReads 