Life force key to save mythical creatures
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/01/2025 (580 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
An Oxford scholar who is fascinated by the mythical creatures described by John Donne and others, Katherine Rundell has written a strange, exciting, adventurous book in Impossible Creatures (Alfred A. Knopf, 368 pages, $27, hardcover). And the book is indeed full of impossible and incredible creatures, including manticores, mermaids, unicorns, sphinx, kraken and chimeras.
When Christopher rescues a drowning baby griffin from an unmarked lake, he discovers the life essence of these mythical creatures has been declining. With the help of Mal, a girl who has unexpected powers, he searches the archipelago, an unmarked area of the natural world, to find the source of the glimourie, or life force. It will take a trip to the centre of the archipelago before they are successful.
Readers will be fascinated by Rundell’s creatures and by the incredible adventures they lead Christopher and Mal on across many landscapes and with many unknown creatures.
In addition to a number of books for young readers, Rundell has also written a book for adults, Super Infinite: The Transformation of John Donne. A follow-up to Impossible Creatures, The Poisoned King, is slated to be published in September.
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Toronto author Wanda Taylor has combined recipes and poetry in a middle-grade novel that will tickle the taste buds.
In A Recipe for Rhyme and Rescue (HarperCollins, 192 pages, $23, paperback), Darla Cooper finds her late grandmother’s recipe book in the attic, introducing us to recipes such as Grandma’s homemade raisin bread and fried bannock. But when Darla loses her late grandma’s recipe book at a food festival, she has to decide whether the most important ingredient is the volume of recipes or the poetry she makes with her fellow Food Poets at Carol’s Café. Perhaps their friend Pedro needs to contribute his recipes from the Caribbean?
Taylor is also a screenwriter and a college professor. Her recent novel, The Grover School Pledge, won the Northern Lights Middle Grade Book of the Year in 2023 and her non-fiction book, Birchtown and the Black Loyalists, was listed as one of the top books about Black History by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre.
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What do you do if you love ribbon skirts but are a boy? That’s the problem for Raven as he watches the colourful skirts circle the room in Tasha Spillett’s Raven’s Ribbons (Owl Kids, 32 pages, $23, hardcover), in which he must make a special request of his famous grandmother to receive his unusual present.
Spillett lives in Treaty 1 Territory and has roots in both Cree and Trinidadian culture; her picture book I Sang You Down from the Stars has achieved wide acclaim. Illustrator Daniel Ramirez is a celebrated artist from the Chippewa tribe of Michigan who has contributed many colourful and animated pictures to Raven’s Ribbons, which were done in Sennelier acrylic paints on canvas.
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Why did people decide to stop hunting and settle down in farming communities?
In Unstoppable Us Vol. 2: Why the World Isn’t Fair (Tundra, 208 pages, $30, hardcover) Israeli professor Yuval Noah Harari puts into easy-to-read language the reasons why the world’s populations decided to settle down and live close together. He points out that these first cereal villages are known to have been established 15,000 years ago.
Readers who enjoy history, or who like to trace the themes that have moved our world since the first wild wolves became domesticated dogs, will enjoy Harari’s prose. His bestsellers include Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century as well as Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. He presently serves as a military historian in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Helen Norrie is a Winnipeg writer and reviewer who enjoys reading children’s books for their variety and versatility.
