Just So Stories

Bloomsbury Australia

September 2023

ISBN	9781408897409
Imprint	Bloomsbury Children’s Books

After waiting for months to have this in my hands, there was never any doubt in my mind that it would be worth that wait. From the first page, it was as if the glimourie was flowing straight off the text and into my fingers, spreading with warmth and delight as I read voraciously.

Christopher Forrester has a strange connection with animals. Ever since he was tiny, animals of all kinds are drawn to him. His father finds this somehow irritating but Christopher secretly enjoys opening his windows at night for the birds to come in, and having foxes nosing his knees.

In a parallel world, Mal is an orphan girl who is able to fly with the aid of a coat given to her, along with her name Malum, by a seer when she was born. Her great-aunt who has raised her, was distrustful of the giver, and sent him away before any more could be known about either coat or child’s destiny.

When Christopher is sent to his maternal grandfather’s remote home in Scotland, he knows nothing of either the man or, essentially, his late mother’s life before he was born. Upon arrival there is already a strangeness that intrigues him, though his grandfather seems pleased, rather than surprised, at the boy’s attraction for animals.

Firmly instructed that he is not to go anywhere near the top of the hill on which the house and land stand, Christopher – as any boy would -ignores the direction, and is just about at the summit when he is almost crushed by, in turn, a gigantic green-scaled horse, a dozen shrew-like creatures with frighteningly long fangs, a scamper of odd green-horned squirrels, and a silver unicorn.

He cannot believe his eyes, naturally. Ignoring his first instinct to turn tail and run, he hears a pitiful sound of distress, rushes on to the very peak where a large, dark lake spreads ominously before him… and in the very centre of that lake something is drowning. And that something is a small but fierce griffin – even Christopher can recognise that.

As he subsequently learns from his grandfather, the lake is the ‘cross over’ or portal to the Archipelago, the last remaining bastion of all ‘mythical’ creatures – and Christopher is, or will be, the Guardian of this hidden refuge after his grandfather.

In the Archipelago, Mal is afraid that something terrible is happening to her world, as she notices more and more ‘less’ – less creatures where they should be, less living forest, less glimourie – the magic of the Archipelago [think The Neverending Story and the Nothing]. But just as Christopher learns of this secret place, Mal is in danger of being killed for some completely unfathomable reason.

When the waybetween opens up, and the two collide, with Gelifen the griffin the conduit, a bond is forged and the true adventure – and danger – begins. The two tweens embark on a quest which will take them to dark and dangerous places, but with unexpected aid along the way, and, certainly, with extraordinary discoveries and impossible endings.

I would not normally do so much ‘telling’ but this is a work of such scope and depth that it needed some introduction. It is every bit as complex and rich as His Dark Materials and the entirety is both wondrous, magical, profound and poignant.

The destruction of the Archipelago wrought by one who desires nothing, but simply revels in the power to do so, is a dire warning for our own world, with its fragility threatened in similar fashion. In just the same way as our own Earth, the destruction of the Archipelago has been slowly, slowly wrought over much time, until it has reached a point where the extinguishing of the richness and living wonders of the world is apparent, and, in some cases, imminent.

Just as frighteningly, are those, both high and low in the Archipelago, who either ignore the problem or feel it is all too difficult (just as the wilfully blind naysayers of climate change in our own world, for example). There are just a few wise ones who understood the enormity of the problem faced by their world. And to a great extent, it is the children and young people of our own societies, who are taking up the cause to fight for the world, and who are willing to make the sacrifices required.

The publisher suggests this is a book for 9 years upwards. Certainly, able readers of that age would be able to read it. But the complexity and subtleties of the narrative, in just the same way as Pullman’s work, require a far more sophisticated reader to appreciate not only its beauty, but its themes. Additionally, there are fairly intense scenes of violence and harm.

For that reason, I suggest this is a book for your very astute readers from 12 years upwards. I cannot tell you how much I love this, 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 am eager for the next instalment, and believe that this will be a major contender in both awards and booklists for some time. It has all the earmarks of modern classic.