Christmas Presents for Young Bookworms

Books have always been at the top of my Christmas wish-lists from an early age – Gene Autry cowboy adventures, The Lion Annual, football annuals and a Biggles Omnibus (I still have a copy) are early memories. If you too have fond memories of tearing off the wrapping round those rectangular parcels and are an incurable book obsessive – there’s no cure as I try to convince my wife, I strongly recommend Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm, a very witty memoir of childhood reading.

At the very heart of Christmas lies a story, a fantastical tale of a world beyond our own and the eternal conflict between good and evil. A young woman has a startling vision of an angel. She has been chosen to give birth to a child who will save the world. Prophecies of long ago will be fulfilled.  When the child is born, shepherds see the night sky spilt open and a host of angels proclaiming Peace on Earth. In the East, astrologers read the signs in the stars and travel to pay homage. The forces of evil are shaken and seek to kill the child. But warned in a dream the parents flee, taking the child to safety.

In children’s literature, the same conflict between good and evil is played out in many well-loved stories. Hidden worlds are just a step away from our own. Children set out on heroic quests.  In Narnia it is Winter but never Christmas; the power of the White Witch must be broken, and it is children stepping into Narnia through the back of a wardrobe who bring about her downfall. In Harry Potter, Platform 9^3/4 is the portal to another realm where the power of Voldemort is on the rise, and in Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy, a Subtle Knife cuts through the space-time fabric between worlds. In these series children are the heroes and heroines.

So, what presents to buy for book-loving children? Here are two suggestions.

Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell (9-12 yrs) has all the familiar themes – heroic children, a hidden world under threat, a murderous pursuit, and a perilous quest. Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in a remote corner of Scotland. There is only one rule, don’t go to the top of the hill behind the house. And when he does Christopher is immediately in danger. He learns that he must enter the hidden world of The Archipelago to help Mal Arvorian, a girl of his own age who is being pursued by a murderer. The Archipelago is a collection of islands populated with mythical creatures, familiar and unfamiliar, Griffins, Centaurs, Unicorns, Borometz and Avancs to name but five. The force that sustains this world is fading, some creatures are nearing extinction and even the land and sea are dying. Only The Immortal has the power to combat this evil but is nowhere to be found. The story is a page-turning, roller-coaster ride, sure to captivate the reader, but if they love it and want more they’ll just have to wait for the next book in the series.

Impossible Creatures has a beautiful, enticing cover, contains a map of the Archipelago and “The Guardian’s Bestiary”, a catalogue of drawings and descriptions of 21 mythical creatures. It is riding high in the best-seller lists with a host of 5-star reviews. Phillip Pullman says, Readers will seize this with delight.”

Katherine Rundell is an Oxford academic specializing in Medieval literature but also a prolific, award-winning writer of children’s books. She says she begins each day with a cartwheel because "reading is almost exactly the same as cartwheeling: it turns the world upside down and leaves you breathless". She also won the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction in 2022 for Super Infinite, a biography of John Donne which I highly recommend. She even sneaks a John Donne quote into Impossible Creatures.

My second recommendation is very different. A Children’s Literary Christmas by the British Library is an anthology of Christmas stories and poems. It is a beautifully produced book, printed on high quality paper with a richly illustrated cover proclaiming works by C S Lewis, Charles Dickens, Laurie Lee, A. A. Milne and many others. Inside are full-colour pages, drawings, cartoons and illustrations, in twenty-four seasonal chapters that contain extracts from books old and new - adventures, festive traditions, tales of elves, snowmen and reindeer, fairytales and folklore. The book is a treasure chest of literary delights that children who love books will enjoy, assuming they can prise it away from their parents. Being an anthology you only get a single chapter of a featured story but hopefully this will whet the appetites of young bookworms to go on and read the whole book.

Happy Christmas and happy reading.