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The Imaginary

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents The Imaginary by A.F. Harrold, read by Sarah Ovens.

Perfect for Neil Gaiman and Roald Dahl fans, this journey into the secret world of imaginary friends is quirky, dark, and utterly irresistible.

Rudger is Amanda Shuffleup's imaginary friend. Nobody else can see Rudger—until the evil Mr. Bunting arrives at Amanda's door. Mr. Bunting hunts imaginaries. Rumor has it that he even eats them. And now he's found Rudger.

Soon Rudger is alone, and running for his imaginary life. He needs to find Amanda before Mr. Bunting catches him—and before Amanda forgets him and he fades away to nothing. But how can an unreal boy stand alone in the real world?

Winner of the UKLA Book Award (7-11 category) (2016)

Critics Review

A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book for 2015
:
Harrold offers an appealingly childcentric world with hefty doses of scare and malevolence. . . . Gravett's several double-page, full-color illustrations, along with lively margin drawings, sweetly blend the real with the imaginary, giving Amanda and Rudger appealing personality--and deliver chills in the form of Mr. Bunting and his own dreadfully spooky imaginary companion. Wonderfully entertaining.
Kirkus Reviews
[An] inventive mix of humor and suspense. . . . The author is equally adept at depicting lighthearted characterizations and scenes that are truly scary. Gravett’s illustrations provide excellent support for the story. . . A great choice for readers who like fantastic tales with a dose of true scariness.
School Library Journal
Emily Gravett's delicate illustrations (and dazzling cover art) . . . capture the motion of Amanda and Rudger's adventures, but the tranquility of play too. . . . For all its flirtations with danger, 'The Imaginary' is most affecting and lovely when describing powerful relationships -- the ones we need and the ones we want, and how this shifts, surprising us, over the course of our lives.
The New York Times Book Review
Echoes of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Toy Story can be detected in Harrold's (the Fizzlebert Stump books) eerie standalone fantasy. . . . Harrold’s story moves along at a steady clip, thanks to some very tense sequences and Gravett's typically polished illustrations, which feature spikes of lurid color and haunting imagery.
Publishers Weekly
Gravett’s full color double-page spreads are magnificent in their capture of the otherworldly tone of the novel. . . The buoyancy and joy in the scenes where Amanda and Rudger take a few ordinary objects and dream up whole worlds of entertainment may have readers wishing they had such a perfect friend.
BCCB
[A] nuanced exploration of the relationship between imagination and memory. . . . Gravett's illustrations use transparency and opacity, color and black-and-white to indicate how real everyone in a scene is to everyone else.
The Horn Book Magazine
[A] winningly whimsical celebration of the imagination, beautifully enhanced by both black-and-white and full-color illustrations by Kate Greenaway Medal–winning Gravett. Together, the text and pictures make this a very real treat.
Booklist
Author A.F. Harrold, illustrated by Emily Gravett
Narrator Sarah Ovens
Duration 4 hours and 6 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781547614073
Format Audiobook
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Genre Children’s / Teenage fiction: Action and adventure stories, Children’s / Teenage fiction: Fantasy, Children’s / Teenage fiction: General fiction, Children’s / Teenage fiction: Science fiction
Availability US

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