There was Tolkien, there is Pullman and now there is Katherine Rundell. Wondrous invention, marvellous writing.
Michael Morpurgo

From Katherine Rundell, the British Book Awards Author of the Year, comes the paperback release of the first novel in the critically acclaimed, award winning, best-selling Impossible Creatures series. This edition includes The Centaur’s Spectacles bonus short story.

Christopher is stunned when he discovers a passage to the Archipelago: a cluster of magical islands where all the creatures of myth still live and breed and thrive in their thousands. There he meets Mal: a girl from the islands, who is in possession of a flying coat and a baby griffin, and who is being pursued by a killer. Together they embark on an urgent quest to discover why the creatures are suddenly perishing, voyaging across the wild splendour of the Archipelago, where sphinxes hold secrets and centaurs do murder, in a bid to save both the islands and the world beyond them from a rising evil – before it's too late.

"A book stuffed full of fantastical, magical delight, and a world of richly imagined wonder."
Cressida Cowell

"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

"Between the covers of Impossible Creatures is a world as enchanting, as perilous, as richly imagined as Narnia or Middle Earth."
Frank Cottrell-Boyce

BRITISH BOOK AWARDS CHILDREN’S FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR * WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER * BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS' AWARD WINNER * FOYLES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR * SHORTLISTED FOR AMAZON KIDS AND YA BOOK OF THE YEAR * THE TIMES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * THE DAILY TELEGRAPH CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK * SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER IN SEPTEMBER 2023