I picked up this book torn between hope and skepticism based on the number of people raving about it. Would it live up to the hype? Dear reader, it did.

Impossible Creatures
by Katherine Rundell
Illustrated by Ashley Mackenzie

Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2024

ISBN 978-0593809860

Read from a library copy.

“It was a very fine day, until something tried to eat him”

Christopher has grown up in our world, feeling mostly like a regular kid except that his father is excessively protective, and animals flock to him wherever he goes. Elsewhere, Mal has grown up living with her very protective aunt since her parents’ death, sneaking away to practice flying with her oversize coat, which lets her catch breezes and glide with them, as well as tracking the growing dead areas in the forest and the magical creatures who live (or no longer live) there. Hers is the world of the Archipelago, the group of islands concealed in our oceans to be a refuge to all magical beings.

Their worlds collide when a baby griffin comes out of the pond on Christopher’s grandfather’s lake in Scotland, and Mal follows to bring him back. Mal and the griffin, Gelifen, are both being chased by a murderer, though Mal doesn’t know why. She does know one thing: she’ll need Christopher’s help to save both herself and Gelifen. As the pieces come together, Mal and Christopher journey together with the help of a drunken pirate captain and a passionate biologist to save the source of the Glimorie, the magic that sustains the Archipelago. The biologist reads as Black; all other major characters read as white.

Even as both children care deeply about the magical creatures, they both struggle to accept their own skills and their roles. The highs and lows of their relationship with each other and their personal journeys keep the story grounded, even as they are exploring the Archipelago, experiencing its different landscapes and interacting with many of its residents, all across the spectrum of magic, kindly and savage, and intelligent and not. Chase scenes, injuries, narrow escapes and wrenching losses combine with personal, beautiful, and hilarious moments and adorable and majectic creatures to make a reading experience that carries on long after the book is done. While the focus is on saving magical creatures, it’s very clear that the creatures of our own world are just as unique and in need of our protection.

I read this in print, and really enjoyed the colored maps on the endpages and the black and white illustrations throughout. If you’re looking for books to give as a gift, this is an extraordinarily beautiful one. Impossible Creatures is one of my personal favorites of the year, and is one of Publisher’s Weekly‘s best books of 2024 as well.

Other books with similar appeal factors include The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat for the travel among different islands, while griffins also play a key role in The Lock-Eater  by Zack Loran Clark, and there are lots of magical creatures in Valentina Salazar is NOT a Monster Hunter
by Zoraida Cordova.