"A poignant and moving, fantastical story, where a magical and wholly convincing alternative world populated by soft toys, allows two very different characters resolve their issues of grief and loss"
Award-winning Kate Saunders takes readers on a wondrous fantasy adventure in the best tradition of children’s stories in which there is another world to ours in which strange and silly things can and do happen. The story is tinged with sadness as the adventures stem from beautifully conveyed feelings of grief that it is often hard to express. Mourning the death of her much-loved sister, Emily finds herself having the most curious dreams in which soft toys came alive and do the most extraordinary things. When Ruth, a neighbour whose son died as a child, dreams the same things, the pair begin an adventure in which the worlds of reality and storytelling and make-believe seem to flow together effortlessly and the absurd becomes the everyday. For both Emily and Ruth, learning to laugh again at the happenings in the imaginary world of Smokeroon provides them with exactly the comfort and imaginary release they so badly need.
Emily watched, in a trance of astonishment, as the bear opened the picnic basket, took out a tartan rug and spread it on Holly's bed. And then the penguin spoke. Actually spoke. 'What's going on? This isn't Pointed End!' The bear said, 'It looks like a human bedroom. We must've come through the wrong door.' 'But there aren't any doors to the hard world in Deep Smockeroon! And we don't have a human bedroom any more. We're in a box in the attic.' What if there exists a world powered by imagination? A world of silliness, where humans and their toys live on long after they've left the Hard World . . . and what if the door between that world and this one was broken?
Welcome to the Land of Neverendings. Moving, raw and funny in all the right ways, The Land of Neverendings is a rip-roaring adventure, but it also gives an honest portrayal of grief for young readers, and shows us that whilst sadness does exist in the world, it doesn't have to cancel out happiness, or silliness, even when you lose someone you love.
Kate Saunders (May 1960 – April 2023) was the author of many books for adults and children. She won the Betty Trask Award and the Costa Children's Book Award and was twice shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Five Children on the Western Front and The Land of Neverendings.
She was also an actress and a journalist writing for the Sunday Times, Sunday Express, Daily Telegraph and Cosmopolitan, and has contributed to Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Start the Week and Kaleidoscope.
