Impossible Creatures: The Poisoned King by Katherine Rundell

A spectacular return to a magical world. Kirkus Star review

"Her grandfather's death was not enough. Her father's conviction would not be enough. When she turned eighteen, she would take the throne. She was the heir. She was in his way. Unless she was dead, her uncle would not be king. He had chosen to clear the path. He needed all three of them dead: grandfather, father, child."

The blurb below talks about Christopher returning to the archipelago but the actual focus of this second book is on Princess Anya Phoebe Cornelia Argen. Years ago her mother died but she has spent a happy childhood living with her father in a remote part of the kingdom. Unfortunately she and her father are forced to move back into the castle where young Anya is given training on how to behave as a perfect princess. Her father, Argus, is the first-born son and so when the old King Halam dies, which everyone assumes is years away, he will be crowned kind and then in turn, again decades from now, if her father dies, Anya as the next in line will become the Queen.

I imagine you have guessed that no one has to wait for this. Right from the start I did not trust the second son, brother to Argus - Prince Claude or Uncle Claude. On the night of a huge an important banquet, Halam is found dead and Argus is accused of the murder. Anya knows this has all been set up by her uncle but how can she prove it. In the middle of the night guards arrive ostensibly to take Anya to boarding school but in a scene reminiscent of Snow White, Anya is taken into the forest to be killed.

Anya is not alone in all of this. Yes she will meet up with Christopher and together they will discover the truth about the killing of many dragons but also he will help her return to the castle so she can reveal the truth about Uncle Claude and, as the title tells you, also reveal how he made and used such a deadly poison. Time is of course ticking because Claude plans to execute Argus in just a few days. As well as Christopher, Anya has her loyal gaganas. The Royal Gaganas are large bird with silver claws and beaks of solid gold. They are capable of extraordinary and lasting love and it is clear they will protect Anya. She also meets a Chimaera, a Sphinx, and several unicorns along with many other fabulous 'impossible creatures'. Oh and thank goodness for the skill of the firebirds who have been trained to detect the fainest whiff of any poison. Yes, this does lead to the wrongful imprisonment of Argus but later they are also able to definitely show that Claude has used this poison again on (spoiler alert) Anya herself.

Here are a couple of text quotes:

"There was a smell that she had never encountered before, of something metallic and acrid. He (the king) was still clad in the clothes he had died in, and a fleck of dark purple-red liquid lay on his collar, and another on his beard: a fleck of poison. She took scissors from his desk and cut the piece of cloth from his collar, where the poison had fallen ... even the tiniest amount of the poison might help her identify it, and if she could identify it she'd be closer to knowing who had committed the murder."

"The dragon led them down a long passage, which widened to become the mouth of a cave, vast enough, Anya thought in awe, for a thousand humans. The ceiling was open in places to the sky outside; ... There, at the heart of the cave, were five dragons. They lay like black-and-red carvings of unspeakable beauty; like the final great inventions of a perfectionist god. They did not move. ... It was the site of a massacre."

There are a myriad of characters in The Poisoned King all with distinct personalities and voices. One of my favourites is Meridarpax a Batrachomyomachian mouse and the assistant librarian. He is known as Meri and lives to help people with book finding and information requests. 

"It would be a great relief to me if you would allow me to assist you, given I am the assistant librarian. ... I yearn to be out there, valiantly assisting, but there have been so few opportunities ... "

I also enjoyed the slowly emerging love story between Irian Guinne who is part neried and Nighthand a Berserker. (An illustrated glossary of the creatures can be found in the back of the book).

Here is a link to some discussion questions you could use with The Poisoned King. 

I can hardly express how much I loved this second book in the Impossible Creatures series. Yes, I have read a plot like this before where the second son, who aspires to be the next king, kills his father and is set to kill the next two family members who are in line for the throne but in the hands of Katherine Rundell this story takes on a whole new dimension. 

This is book two in the series but it can stand alone. I read the first book in 2023 and only remembered fragments. I didn't need to re-read the first book to thoroughly enjoy this second installment. I highly recommend you add both of these books to your library (Primary or High School). I visited a city bookstore today and they have a scrumptious hardcover of The Poisoned King with edge or for-edge painting. Even if this book feels outside the genre you usually read please add this book to your to-read  list. The Poisoned King is such a rich and rewarding reading experience. 

You can buy this special edition here for a great price [9781526685452]

Bookseller blurb: The dragons call out, and the ratatoskas tell of murder. Come with us now. There is justice to be done. Return to the magic of the Archipelago... The Poisoned King is the dazzling second book in Katherine Rundell's epic and bestselling Impossible Creatures series. When Christopher Forrester is unexpectedly woken by a miniature dragon chewing on his face, his heart leaps for joy. For months he's dreamed of returning to the Archipelago - the secret islands where all the creatures of myth still live. But he did not know it would involve a rescue mission on the back of a sphinx, or a plan to enter a dragon's lair. Nor did he imagine it would involve a girl with a flock of birds at her side, a new-hatched chick in her pocket and a ravenous hunger for justice...

You can read a generous text sample here. Katherine Rundell talks about her book here. Listen to an audio sample (read by Samuel West his voice is perfect). 

An absolute, exquisitely written, expertly plotted, emotionally affecting and totally immersive triumph! Love Reading4Kids

The plot is captivating ... YA Books Central

There are moments of high drama, laugh-out-loud humour, wonder and amazement. I love that the librarian in charge of a mysterious long-hidden library is a very wise and knowledgeable harpy – she is clearly of my tribe *grin*. Nighthand’s complete resistance, in fact denial, to the very idea of being in love is highly amusing. Jacques may be a dragon but he always reminds me of Reepicheep – the smallest warrior with the biggest heart as well as his ego. Once again, it is an absolutely marvellous piece of high adventure and fantasy, with so many underlying themes to unpack: loyalty and treachery, greed and generosity, revenge, justice, courage and compassion. Kids' Book review

Here is the cover of the first book:

Impossible Creatures

 In my post about this first book I list all the other books by Katherine Rundell that I have read and loved. I also included further reading about Mythical Creatures.

You could follow the Poisoned King with these:

Small wonder

The Letter for the King

Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell

In this book you will meet - beautiful Al-mirajes; Dragons of every size; a Kanko; a vicious Karkadann; some little Lavellans; a huge Longma; a very special Ratatoska; a herd of Unicorns and many others.

Publisher blurb: Impossible Creatures tells the story of a boy called Christopher who is visiting his reclusive grandfather when he witnesses an avalanche of mythic 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 for thousands of years from being discovered; 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 splendor 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.

As I read this book I added about 40 post-it notes marking my favourite scenes and sentences.  Here are some of them:

"This world has always had magic in it, Christopher. Aren't you holding a griffin in your arms? The magic grew with the Earth's first tree, from the tree it flowed into the soil, into the air and the water. In the Archipelago, they call it the glimourie."

"Some sentences have the power to change everything. There are the usual suspects: I love you, .... But the words with the greatest power to create both havoc and marvels are these - I need your help."

"He knew that sometimes, if you are among the very lucky, a spark of understanding cuts like lightning across the space between two people. It's a defibrillator for the heart. And it toughens you. It nourishes you."

Thank you, Katherine Rundell for mentioning delicious and essential food - this is something I always look for in longer complex books like this one.

"She spent hours running through trees with Gelifen (a griffin), looking for unicorns and gorging on waterberries."

"There was a wall of blue glass jars, containing sweets from across the Archipelago. There were balls of soft gum, harvested from the sea by sylphs, which gave you brief bursts of great physical strength, but if you chewed too long gave you a rash of scales across your hands. There were ruinously expensive candies called voulay-drops, made my centaurs in the mountains of Edem. They tasted of that which craved most, but also, if you ate more than one, made you vomit something black for days afterwards."

"The table was laden with food. There was a beautiful moist nut cake, and fresh cinnamon twists, and a plate of biscuits still hot from the own.  Leonor was grey-haired, untalkative, unsmiling - but she showed her care in her cooking. She was the finest baker in the whole of Icthus: it was there that she put her patience, and her love."

"His grandfather had said that unicorns had a taste for mint. Quickly he tore open the pack and held them out in one hand. The unicorn dipped its mouth and sucked them from his palm, leaving it wet with unicorn spit. Then it touched its muzzle to his face, and breathed. Christopher felt the warmth on his skin and it smelt of mint and animal and something magnificently wild ..."

"There was a dark flat bread, which they ate dipped in olive oil. There was a slab of cream-coloured dried fish, delicious and so salty it was like eating the sea itself."

"He had been given a woven bag of apples, of plums and pears and apricot: dryad fruit, like nothing else on earth. They tasted still-living fruits with opinions and jokes and laughter in them."

Overtones of folklore; mythology; fairytales; and CS Lewis (the final scenes are sure to make you think of Aslan and Narnia):

"It had been years now since Mal had first learned to fly. a travelling seer had given her the flying coat soon after she was born. He had named her and laid the coat at her small feet." I thought of Sleeping Beauty.

Vocab: phalanx of swans; rhinocerosed; gainsay; scrofulous. And there are lots of invented words too. 

Names are important in this book too (think of A Wizard of Earthsea). Mal is short for Malum - and malum has a deep meaning - one that Mal herself has yet to discover. 

There is also a tiny thread of a love story in Impossible Creatures. I am not going to spoil this with any details, but adult readers might think of scenes from a favourite movie where the two main characters briefly glance at one another and then look away or brush hands and it's electric - these tiny moments were thrilling for a romantic reader like me. 

The Guardian's Bestiary at the start of this book has art by Tomislav Tomić. He is from Croatia. The cover is by Daniel Egnéus. (I have talked here about two of his books - Fox and Raven Child. In the UK the hardcover edition has phoenix sprayed on the page edges - it looks so magical.

Image source: Instagram

One of my favourite parts of writing Impossible Creatures was creating a bestiary to go in the front of the book: a collection of twenty-one of the creatures you might meet in the Archipelago. It’s illustrated by Tomislav Tomic, whose artwork is magnificent - 

kluddes and kankos and karkadanns, longmas and lavellans. 

I am not a big fan of endorsements, but this book has a huge list of celebrity praises - Michael Morpurgo; Catherine Doyle; Philip Pullman; Neil Gaiman; Jacqueline Wilson; and Kiran Millwood Hargrave. 

Everyone on social media is so excited about this new Katherine Rundell book - and justly so. I have seen bookshop window displays here in Australia (Three Sparrows) and in UK (my bookish friend has shared them) and the Australian children's book podcast Your Kids' Next Read included an interview with Katherine Rundell [begin at 16.45]- this is quite amazing because this group (Facebook and Podcasts) are usually, almost exclusively, focused on Australian books. I was also amazed that that interviewer had not previously read any of Katherine's books - how did she miss them and why didn't she prepare for the interview?  Anyway, if you listen you can hear Katherine Rundell's absolutely beautiful, lyrical speaking voice. 

I completely agree with these review comments by Just So Stories: I cannot tell you how much I love this (book), and that will be demonstrated by the fact that I will be keeping my copy and will re-read it, more than once I suspect. Though I read it immediately it was received, in swift binge fashion (and cried), it has taken me two weeks to compose this review – which I fear still does not do it justice.

I also agree this book is best for mature readers aged 11 or 12+. 

Here is Katherine Rundell on Instagram. Here is a one hour video where Katherine talks with Michael Morpurgo about her book. I do need to warn you, I just read on the UK publisher site (Bloomsbury) that Impossible Creatures is the first book in a trilogy. The good news is that at the end of the first book we are not left hanging. Yes, another book will be very welcome but enough is resolved at the end of the first installment thank goodness. Listen to this short introduction by Katherine Rundell. 

Writing fantasy has been a huge joy. Impossible Creatures has been a long time in the making – I pitched the idea more than five years ago, and I’ve found it a magnificent challenge. I loved fantasy as a child, and I love it now as a writer – for the freedom it gives to wholly unleash your imagination. Fantasy seems to me one of the most exciting ways to wield metaphor: so that, in writing about griffins and dragons and horned hares and immortality and flying coats, you might offer children (who have such allegiance with the fantastic, in every sense) a way to fathom their own world. Katherine Rundell

I have read and LOVED so many books by Katherine Rundell and the delicious thing about her writing is that it defies categorization. She covers so many genres and themes but the one thing that links these books is that they are all page turners and for me, they are all FIVE star titles.

The Explorer

The Good Thieves

Wolf Wilder

Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms

I also loved these:

One Christmas Wish

Why you should read children's books

All through this book I kept thinking about this book illustrated by our Australian Hans Christian Andersen winner - Robert Ingpen and I have discovered he has a new book about mythical creatures too.

Companion reads:

Why you should read Children's books by Katherine Rundell

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise is the full title. Notice all those wonderful CAPITAL LETTERS!

I need to carry multiple copies of this book with me at all times. I read children's books. I blog here about children's books. I visit libraries to borrow children's books. I browse the kids section in bookshops so I can keep up with new titles and buy children's books AND I don't think there is anything wrong with that BUT when I explain this is what I do, people are astounded. Do you read adult books they ask? Yes I say but very infrequently and mostly I am disappointed in them. I see it in their eyes, their opinion of me slumps. How can anyone enjoy reading (almost exclusively) hundreds of children's books?  Thank goodness for Katherine Rundell - she gives voice to the things I think but cannot express as eloquently.  Katherine talks about the myth of reading in one direction. Moving from Spot to the Wild Things, on to Narnia and Catcher in the Rye then finishing your life with Finnegans Wake and Jacques Derrida. She argues this is totally wrong. The human heart is not a linear train. Here are a couple of quotes from this essay by Katherine Rundell:

Children's books when "read with an adult eye, have a different kind of alchemy in them." page 9

"Children's fiction necessitates distillation: at its best, it render in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear. Think of children's books as literary vodka." page 12

Children's novels say: "look, this is what bravery looks like. This is what generosity looks like. They tell me, through the medium of wizard, lions and talking spiders, that this world we live in is a world of people who tell jokes and work and endure. Children's books say the world is huge." page 47

"Children's book are not a hiding place, they are a seeking place." page 62

This is a tiny little book, only 15cm tall, with just over 60 pages. It costs around $13. The publisher has given this book a bright red cover so I can be seen on a shelf - perfect. I highly recommend this little gem for all children's literature fans who face my struggles explaining why "you should read children's books even though you are so old and wise." Buy one for yourself and an extra copy or two for your friends.

The book is also intended to fight against the “outrageous and absurd” idea that adults who read children’s fiction should feel some kind of cultural shame. “I’m not arguing that adults should only read children’s fiction, but I’m arguing, very passionately, that adults who read children’s fiction are offered something which perhaps other fiction cannot provide: a kind of hope and hunger. The Book Seller

Books by Katherine Rundell:

The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell

From the first pages I knew I was going to love this book. Vita travels to 1920s New York with her mother. Her beloved grandfather is alone in the world now because his wife, Vita's grandmother, has died. Vita bursts into her grandfathers tiny apartment and he greets her with her nick name - Rapscallion. I adore the ring of that word - here it is again Rapscallion. Vita has a talent and a handicap - perhaps these things balance each other out. Her talent is accurate throwing of small objects such as stones. She can be so precise that right at the start of this book she hits the head of a seagull in flight - not to kill it but to send it away from the young crow it is attacking. Later she throws stones at the mathematical centre of her wardrobe door. She seems to do all of this with ease and we learn she does this because it allows her to think and solve problems. Her disability comes from the polio she contracted as a young child.

"Her left calf was thinner than her right, and her left foot curved in on itself. ... She could run, though it made the muscles pull and burn ... she never breathed a word about that particular pain."

Vita has a very serious problem to solve. Her grandfather used to live in a castle on the Hudson River in New York city but recently a millionaire con man by the name of Victor Sorrotore has swindled Grandpa and he no longer has his castle home. But there is more. Grandpa explains there is an emerald pendant hidden in the castle. It is worth thousands. Vita now knows what to do. She must get inside the castle, find the emerald, present it to Grandpa and he can buy back his castle and his happiness will be restored.

Vita knows what has to be done but she needs help.  She spies two boys outside her window. They are both quite small and she watches in amazement as one jumps right out of a third storey window onto a thin mattress. These boys are circus performers. Vita, Arkday, Samuel and a girl from the streets called Silk form a gang with the purpose of 'stealing' back the emerald but first Vita must deal with Sorrotore.

You need to understand this man is thoroughly evil. He is a gangster. In his office Vita sees two tortoises. They have rubies and diamonds set into their shells spelling out the words Imperium (power) and Vita (life).

"Doesn't it hurt them?" asked Vita."
Sorrotore replies:
"Hurt them? Don't be crazy - they're animals."

I read this book compulsively on a long plane flight and then felt sad, as I do with all fabulous books, that the glorious experience of reading was over. For a few hours I was with Vita. I felt her heartache and her excruciating pain. I held my breath each time she encountered Sorrotore and I cheered at the wonderful team work and loyalty of her friends as they race to retrieve the emerald.

Something you need to know about Katherine Rundell. She likes to truly experience the activities and actions of her characters. She once ate a tarantula so she could accurately describe the taste for her book The Explorer. For this book, The Good Thieves, she wanted to know about tight-rope walking. At the Sydney Writers Festival this year she told her young audience how she has broken 'all' her toes trying to walk across a rope in her own living room. I remembered author Michelle Paver talked about this same idea at an event I attended in 2000. Michelle talked about her series The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. For her books, Michelle swam with killer whales and she learned to skin and dismember elk and reindeer not wasting any part of the beast - a skill vital to the survival of the Inuit people. These stories, which show a true passion for authenticity by Katherine and Michelle, just captivate me.

I absolutely adore the writing of Katherine Rundell.  A few days ago our ABC Radio National included an interview with Katherine where she talked about why adults should be reading children's books. Of course she said all the things I believe but far more eloquently. Listen here from 43 minutes into the 57 minute program. I love that she mentions A Wizard of Earthsea.

Talking about Children's Literature here some of Katherine's words from this interview:

"A casket of wonders" "galvanic kick that can change your life" "precision of language" "distillation" "condense your writing into something sharp" "a bright bold way to think about the things that are most important to us"

Here is hardcover edition of The Good Thieves:

You can listen to an audio sample here from page 5 until the early in Chapter Two. In this video Katherine reads an extract which really demonstrates the way this story is so action packed. This book reminded me of The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo and The Billionaires Curse by Richard Newsome. You might also look for The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke and an older Australian title The Remarkable Secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen by Deb Abela.

Click on each of these quotes for more plot details of The Good Thieves.

Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure. Kirkus

There are twists and turns but not a page is wasted. Fabulous, interesting and genuine characters paired with a clever edge-of-your seat plot make this one a cracker!  Readings Melbourne

As always, Rundell’s writing is swift and breathless, propelling the reader through the text like a glider through air, swooping and diving in and out of the plot, with short paragraphs and snippy dialogue. She uses simile and metaphor with the precision of a knife thrower. She cuts through excess, landing each word with specificity and wisdom. Minerva Reads


Other books by Katherine Rundell I have mentioned in this blog:

• Rooftoppers
• Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms
• The Explorer
• The Wolf Wilder

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell illustrated by Hannah Horn

"They had become a pack.  Or, an expedition, 
he corrected himself. That was what you call a group of explorers."

"Every human on this earth is an explorer. Exploring is 
nothing more than paying attention, writ large. Attention."

Why did I pick up this book?  The author is a favourite of mine.  The cover looked very appealing.  The Amazon setting sounded intriguing especially since Journey to the River Sea is a book I totally adored, and it is set in the same location.

Four children (two girls and two boys) are travelling in a small plane across the Amazon jungle.  For different reasons the children are going to Manaus in Northern Brazil. They don't know each other.  Fred is excited to be flying but he notices the pilot is struggling:

"The pilot grasped Fred's wrist hard for a single moment, then his head slumped against the dashboard. And the sky, which had second before seemed so reliable, gave way."

With the pilot now dead, and the plane a burnt out wreck, the four children must now find a way to survive in a jungle that seems to be filled with so many dangers.  Fred, Constantia (Con), Lila and her five-year-old brother Max really have no idea about how to find food, shelter and water.  Fred has done a little reading about explorers, and he is a resourceful boy but really it is just good luck that they stumble on an old unused shelter.  Over the coming days they experiment with things to eat and because it is the jungle they do eventually find bananas and pineapples. In the shelter they find some flint stones and using Fred's broken watch they manage to make a fire.

It is little Max who seems to observe the world in a different way.  He sees some monkey's gathering honey from a beehive.

"The monkey's washed their hands in the ants and then they fought the bees."  The children watch the monkeys and then gather the ants and rub them all over their skin. The smell is like ammonia. Fred and Con climb the tree and, even though it is utterly terrifying, they gather some honey and, in the process, find a pouch containing a map.  It is at this point their adventure takes a sharp turn.  Clearly someone has been there. Fred has already made a raft so now the group know they need to move on, follow the river and the map and find the city of Manaus and perhaps even find the map maker.

I like the way Katherine Rundell gives small but very meaningful insights into the back story and personality of each child.

Fred - "Inside Fred was hunger, hope and wire... Fred's mind was quick with sharp edges. He wanted more from the world than it had yet given."

Con - "She moved stiffly, as if unaccustomed to using her own body. Her clothes seemed to sit on her like a bear trap."

Lila - "She was small and moved on the edge of her muscles, like an animal - a deer or a lemur - as if she heard things other people did not."

Teachers could make good use of the descriptions in The Explorer such as this one:

"His shoes were made from what looked like alligator skin, with very thin vines for shoelaces. A jacket sewn nearly from black furs, hung over his shoulders. The buttons were caiman teeth."

It is easy to see Katherine Rundell did a lot of research for this book. Apart from an actual trip to the Amazon she includes interesting, and at times, gruesome details about eating tarantulas, catching fish even piranhas, stripping vines to make rope and the dangers of bullet ants.

There is a link between the title - The Explorer - and finding of the map because the children do find a man.  He won't give his name. He is an explorer, or at least he seems to be, he is living in the jungle and has the knowledge the children need to survive their journey back to civilization but the man demands a promise from the children. He needs them to understand why this environment is precious and why it needs protection from the outside world.

The Explorer would link well with Journey to the River Sea, Hatchet and The Island trilogy by Gordon Korman beginning with Shipwreck. In this video Katherine Rundell explains the thinking behind her novel and in this one Katherine reads the first chapters of her book.  It is interesting to read this interview with Katherine by Kirkus.

I did enjoy The Explorer but I would like to know a little more about why these four children were travelling alone across Brazil. Also, in the final scenes (can't tell you too much) when Fred becomes the hero, I wanted Con and Lila to shine a little more.  My favourite character is Max - he is funny, honest and very grubby.

Rundell’s rich, descriptive prose will transport her young readers to a mesmerising world where they can swim with river dolphins, eat a tarantula and discover a ruined city. The mystery deepens when the discovery of a map suggests they are not the first humans to find this place.  The Guardian

The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell illustrated by Gelrev Ongbico

Feo shook her head: she couldn't speak.  The moments in which the world turns suddenly kind 

can feel like a punctured lung.  She stood in the marble hall and cried ...

We can take our fear back.  And I don't know if we'll win but we have the right to try.  

The adults, they want us to be quiet and careful, 

but we have a right to fight for the world we want to live in, 

and nobody has the right to tell use to be safe and sensible. I say, today, we fight!

The Wolf Wilder is one of those absolutely delicious books that is a true a feast for the reader.  This is also one of those books that I read late into the night, picked up over breakfast and raced home to finish.  This is a ten out of ten book.  You should rush out and grab a copy today.

This is the third book I have read by Katherine Rundell and I am now a confirmed fan of her work. Her writing gives a strong sense of place and you will fall in love with her central characters especially Feo or Feodora in this book.

Wolf Wilder is set in Russia.  A cruel General called Rakov is the commander of the Tsar's Imperial Army. He set to claim money for an elk owned by the Tsar and recently killed by wolves.

At this time in Russia wolves are taken as pets for the aristocrats.

"The captured wolves wear golden chains and are taught to sit still while people around them laugh and drink ... But a wolf cannot be tamed in the way a dog can be tamed, and it cannot be kept indoors."

Fedora and her mother are wilders.  It is their job to take rejected wolves, 'untame' them, teach them to survive in the wild. Feo has spent her whole life surrounded by wolves living with her mother in a remote cottage. Rakov arrives and he destroys everything.  Marina is taken to a prison in St Petersburg.  Feo is now on the run with three of her special wolves and a wolf pup.  It is cold and dangerous but she does enlist some loyal companions and you can be sure good will triumph over evil.

"We don't give them human names ... Wolves have their own names. They don't need ours.  So we call them by a colour, or description - like Tenderfoot."

The illustrations are a special feature of this book.  You can read more about their creation here.  You can hear Katherine Rundell reading from the beginning of her book.  You should also read this interview with Katherine about the inspiration for this book.  Here is the Kirkus review.

“A triumph! Exciting, moving, highly original, fierce, completely convincing”

 –  Philip Pullman 

The Wolf Wilder is one of the most beautifully written books I've read in a long time 

Here are some of the other covers.  Which one do you like?

I also love these descriptions of cold  :

"There were, in Feo's experience, five kids of cold.  There was wind cold, which Feo barely felt. ...There was snow cold, which plucked at your arms and chapped your lips ... it was Feo's favourite weather and good for making snow wolves. There was ice cold, which might take the skin off your palm ... Then there was hard cold. ... Hard cold could be cruel ... And there was blind cold. Blind cold smelt of metal and granite.  It took all the senses out of your brain ... "

Cartwheeling in thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell

After reading Rooftoppers I knew I wanted to pick up another book by Katherine Rundell.  I started Cartwheeling in thunderstorms early this afternoon and finished it before the sunset.  This is a fabulous book and as Philip Pullman says on the back cover Katherine Rundell has a 'distinctive voice and a wild imagination.'

Will (Wilhelmina) has a blissfully free life in Zimbabwe.  Her friends are the wild animals, her horse and the neighbourhood boys especially her best friend Simon. The farm where she has lived her whole life is owned by Captain Browne and Will's dad is the foreman.  Wills' mum, Lilibet, was a very special lady who also embraced life in the wilds of Africa but sadly she died when Will was only five.

"Seven years after his wife's death, William Silver started running a temperature.  The next day he collapsed on the packed earth floor of the stable."

The story now references Cinderella.  Captain Browne takes a wife. She immediately plots to get rid of little Will.  She organises to send this wild child to an English boarding school.

I love this description of Cynthia (Captain Browne's new wife).  "Cynthia Vincy was well-dressed, strong jawed, long-legged, conscious of her power over men: formidable. ... Cynthia smiled down at Will.  The smile marred the woman's perfect poise; it was a square smile, like a letter box. Cynthia was aware of this and rarely smiled."

Everything about the school is horrid.  The food, the tiny room she has to share with one of the school bullies, the bitter cold and the endless rules.

"She discovered that times tables had nothing to do with time, not in fact with tables; that history was not a thousand stories building up into the colossal, strange, heart-stoppingly beautiful present; that knowing about cows and snake bites and birth and umbilical cords was irrelevant in science class.  She also learned that shorts were wrong and she had gypsy hair and she wasn't funny, wasn't clever, and looked like a mad tramp in her thick socks and muddy boots."

Will finally escapes after an especially distressing incident where a gang of girls force her into a cold bath.  She wanders the streets of London.  It is Winter and she is only wearing shorts.  She spends a night at the zoo, a night in Hyde Park and tries to hide in a corner of Harrods department store.

While at the zoo she has a chance meeting with a young boy.  He shares his Mars bar and gives her half of his comic book.  Later she sees an address scribbled on a corner of this comic.  Perhaps she can at last find somewhere to feel safe and take refuge.

After reading Cartwheels in thunderstorms you might look for Duck for Danger (sadly long out of print), Callie and the Prince (also out of print) and Figgy in the world.

Take a minute to watch this video with Katherine Rundell where she describes her own childhood in Zimbabwe.  You could also read the beautiful speech she gave at the Horn Book awards.

I do need to mention the title - Cartwheeling in thunderstorms.  After her journey, both physical and emotional, Will now accepts that for now she needs to learn how to cartwheel in thunderstorms.

Kirkus have given this book a star!  Here is an extract from their review :

There is an excellent balance of characters both villainous and helpful as readers follow the fiercely independent Will 

through hardship and into triumph. 

They cannot help but dearly love Will and her motto of 

“Truth, ja, and courage.”

Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

Here is another one of my midnight reads.  I simply could not postpone my reading until today, so late into the night I finished this amazing book.

The theme and motto of this book is:

Never ignore a possible

I actually hardly know where to begin with this book.  Sophie survives a shipwreck and is rescued by the wonderful Charles.

"On the morning of its first birthday, a baby was found floating in a cello case in the middle of the English Channel."

"Think of night-time with a speaking voice. Or think how moonlight might talk, ... give those things a narrow face with hooked eyebrows, and long arms and legs, and that is what the  baby saw as she was lifted out of her cello case and up into safety.  His name was Charles Maxim, and he determined ... he would keep her."

Naturally the authorities do not approve of these arrangements.

"The child is your ward.  She is not your daughter.' This was the sort of woman who spoke in italics.  You would be willing to lay bets her hobby was organising people."

Sophie lives a happy, if somewhat odd life, with Charles until she turns twelve.  At this time the aforementioned authorities arrive this time with plans to move Sophie into more suitable accommodation - an orphanage.

Sophie has a deep longing in her heart.  She knows her precious mother is still alive somewhere in the world.  She is certain, absolutely certain, that her mother was a musician who played the cello. Sophie is a resilient, intrepid and daring young girl with extraordinary climbing skills. When she discovers the name of the cello maker hidden inside her cello case her course is set.  She and Charles now need to move quickly, run away to Paris, find the cello maker and in turn find Sophie's mother.

While in Paris, Charles and Sophie stay in a run down hotel. Sophie climbs onto the roof and there she meets a young Rooftopper - a boy called Matteo.

Here are a few more quotes to demonstrate the beauty of this writing.

For their train trip to Paris Sophie travels in a small carriage usually reserved for the children of the Duke of Kent.  "The carriage was beautiful. Everything was child-sized and made with the delicacy and detail of witch-craft."

Sophie and Charles race across Paris to the cello maker.  "It was ten minutes' walk; ten minutes through cobbled streets, and window boxes full of red carnations, ... ten minutes in which Sophie's heart looped the loop and danced a jitterbug".

Matteo and Sophie share a feast provided by Charles (who perhaps knows more than he is letting on).

"The pack was full of parcels wrapped in greaseproof paper. ... bread rolls, four of them, soft in the middle and dusted with flour at the top.  They were still warm from the oven and they smelt of blue skies.  The bread had been spread by someone with strong opinions about butter - it was as thick as the first joint on Sophie's thumb."

If you enjoy Rooftoppers - actually when you read Rooftoppers - please read this book - you should also look for The three loves of Persimmon, The invention of Hugo Cabret, The truth about Verity Sparks, Secret letters from 0-10 and Withering by Sea.  I also thought of Journey to the River Sea and Tensy Farlow.

There is a musical score right through Rooftoppers.  Perhaps you could listen to a little of it to set the mood.  You can read a more detailed description of the plot here.  Here is a video with the author.

I held my breath through most of this book and then I held my breath when I clicked on the Kirkus review. YES!!! They loved this book too.

This witty, inventively poetic, fairy-tale–like adventure 

shimmers with love, magic and music

Whimsical, beautifully-written and as carefully balanced as the tightrope Sophie learns to walk, Rooftoppers is a sensitive and emotionally-resonant novel 

with an uplifting message about the power of hope