Mal is a girl living in the Archipelago, a cluster of unmapped islands where, until recently, magical creatures have thrived for thousands of years. Christopher is from plain old London, but he and Mal are about to embark on a wild journey to find out why creatures are dying and why magic is weakening in Katherine Rundell’s newest book Impossible Creatures.
Rundell is an English author whose previous books include Rooftoppers, Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer, and The Good Thieves. In a recent What We’re Reading interview, she explained that growing up in Zimbabwe, Brussels, and London allowed her to see different ways of living and of finding joy and wonder.
For instance, speaking to living in Zimbabwe during the formative years of her childhood, Rundell explained, “I would see such beauty and a kind of beauty that has been so grossly eroded by the world… a kind of plea for children to learn to use the ‘wonder’ muscle to learn to look for, hunt out, seek and adore beautiful living.”
In Impossible Creatures, Rundell blends the fantastic with real world history. Leonardo da Vinci and Pliny the Elder are among historical figures that play a part in the story. Rundell admitted, “I always loved in mythical, fantastical stories with bits of the real world because they sow in your mind doubt about whether or not this in fact is history.”
But the focus of the story is on Christopher and Mal and the big adventure they embark on to try to save the Archipelago and magic. Mal in particular is smart and brave and tenacious. Writing Mal, Rundell admitted, “was one of the great pleasures of my professional life because I just loved writing a girl who is stubborn and alone, but ready to rise to that which the world asks of her. That was a real joy.”
Impossible Creatures does take on some more serious issue. There are some deaths in the story and an allusion to the devastating effects of the climate crisis. How to write about serious issues for children is something Rundell frequently thinks about.
“What can children bear? How much of the darkness of the world should we be offering them in books? … I think what you need to do is give them a sense that you are not mad to think that the world is hard and full of danger and peril because it is, and it will be a lie to say everything is fine. But the wonders of the world are so colossal that not to see them and salute them with your whole heart would be to misunderstand the world in the most fundamental way.”
Rundell noted that while some stories can teach children about loss, they also teach them to fight and have resilience and they’ll take these lessons with them into adulthood. She elaborated on these points in her 2019 book Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise (you can read an extract here), specifically how children's books are at its core, written for people who are vulnerable, without political power or money. And as the title argues, adults can still take away lessons and reignite their imagination by reading them.
Rundell explained, “I think in adulthood we can sometimes start to think of imagination, of imagining things which are not but might be, as an indulgence or a sort of optional extra, but imagination is the tool of ethics. It is the condition precedent for political change, for imaginative love.”
Learn more about Katherine Rundell's Impossible Creatures here.
Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.
What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.
