Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
Impossible Creatures By Katherine Rundell; illustrated by Ashley Mackenzie
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
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.
Author Katherine Rundell reads the first chapter of her captivating, action-packed fantasy adventure, Impossible Creatures.
Praise for Impossible Creatures
★ “An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ “Employing plotting reminiscent of works by Ursula Le Guin and Philip Pullman, Rundell deploys fresh language, epic stakes, bonds both tender and devastating, and fierce kid characters. It’s a thoughtfully lore-informed narrative about the kinship of living things and the marvels of being alive—a story that, above all, takes children seriously.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “A quintessential fantasy that will delight readers of all ages.” — School Library Journal, starred review
★ “Rundell has delivered a welcome reminder of what makes the genre great. By taking risks, honoring her ancestors, and weaving a magic of her own, she adds her voice to the ancient, ongoing chorus of storytellers.” — Booklist, starred review
★ “Impossible Creatures is an ode to children’s ability to hope and to make hard decisions … for readers who devour adventure fantasy stories like The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill as well as classics like Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, Impossible Creatures is a must-read.” —BookPage, starred review
“A powerful drama filled with self-sacrifice and great-heartedness . . . entrancing and refreshing.” —The Horn Book
“Rundell is well nigh irresistible.” –The New York Times Book Review
“With an utterly charming combination of wit and peril, Impossible Creatures is a magical book you race to finish and then immediately want to read aloud to someone little.” —The Washington Post
“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
“An absolute WOW of a book. Utterly enchanting and full of wonder, readers are in for a treat!” — B. B. Alston, author of Amari and the Night Brothers
“I love Katherine Rundell’s writing. . . . 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, author of The Golden Compass
Download the Educators’ Guide
Our free digital educators’ guide explores themes of friendship, courage, folklore, and more, through thoughtful activities and engaging discussion questions.
The Archipelago is a hidden world where magical creatures of every kind thrive. What research did you do to help create your collection of mythological animals?
I spent many wonderful hours in libraries researching the magical creatures that we were once absolutely convinced were real. I read mythical encyclopedias, old manuscripts (in my other work, I research Renaissance literature at Oxford, so I have access to fantastic, dusty archives), and ancient histories, all to create a file with hundreds of pages of notes about my creatures. We used to believe there were unicorns in the wild, which makes perfect sense, really, given that narwhals exist. The line between possible and impossible in the natural world is so very thin: there are many things that seem like they should be glorious myths—giraffes, hedgehogs, swifts—that are true.
Impossible Creatures is already being called an “instant classic.” Which books and authors, both classic and contemporary, were your biggest influences when writing Impossible Creatures?
I’ve always loved fantasy, and grew up reading the masters Narnia, especially, gave me endless happiness. And I adored Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It, Diana Wynne Jones, Philip Pullman—and the older work too: Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, The Odyssey, the old Norse sagas, and Greek myths. I love the scope that modern fantasy gives authors to write about urgent truths—about power, and loss, and endurance—in a way that also offers a thrilling journey and a feast of pleasure.
Impossible Creatures is full of action and adventure. How do bring such gripping action to life?
Thank you so much! I’m thrilled you think so—I wanted to create a story that would grab children by the wrist and not let them go until the last page. I think children deserve huge, wild adventures, so at every step, I asked myself: Would I find this exciting, if I was reading it for the first time? Can I make it bolder, sharper, brighter, swifter?
What message do you hope readers take away from Impossible Creatures?
I wanted to write a book that would be, first and foremost, a great sweep of adventure and action and delight: I don’t think it’s fair to offer children a story and then bludgeon them with a moral. But the book is, in part, about the threat of endangerment: about the idea of fighting with everything you have to protect that which is vulnerable, because what is lost is lost forever. And I wanted to suggest to children that our own world is one of such magnificence that if we were not familiar with it—if we were to discover it anew—it would knock us sideways with astonishment.
Download the full Q&A with Katherine Rundell, author of Impossible Creatures.
Katherine Rundell
KATHERINE RUNDELL is the internationally bestselling author of Impossible Creatures. Her other books for children include Rooftoppers, Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer, and The Good Thieves. She grew up in Zimbabwe, Brussels, and London, and is currently a Fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. For adult readers, Rundell has written Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures and Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. She was the recipient of the British Book Award for Book of the Year and Author of the Year.
