The Immortals: The Book of Nate

Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's The Immortals: The Book of Nate is a huge, gritty fantasy adventure for 11 year olds about a young miner who has to run for his life.

What happens

Nate Quarter is fourteen and a lamplighter in a stormphrax mine. Stormphrax is lightning that has turned solid, and it's the most precious stuff in the Edgelands. But it's only safe to dig in a perfect twilight glow. Too dark and the crystals turn impossibly heavy. Too bright and they explode.

So Nate's job really matters. And when a lamp he KNOWS he filled goes out, he's flogged for it.

Since his father died three years ago, the mine has been run by Grint Grayle, a cruel sergeant with a scarred face. Nate is starting to wonder whether his father's death was an accident at all.

What keeps him going is his best friend Rudd, a huge, cheerful cloddertrog who likes his woodale and watches Nate's back. Their friendship is lovely to read. They tease, they grumble and they look out for each other.

The world is extraordinary. There's a tavern built from two wrecked sky galleons stuck in a tree, glowing lullabee trees you can climb, and the golden Twilight Woods nearby, where anyone who wanders in loses their mind but can't die. The detail is so rich you can almost taste the mud.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is darker than a lot of fantasy on this shelf. Nate is flogged, old miners have a cough from the dust that's slowly killing them, and a stretcher comes out of the mine with a blanket over it. Then, early on, someone Nate loves is shot dead right in front of him, and the wound is described. A reader who's upset by violence may want to wait. Readers who like adventures with real stakes will be hooked.

It's set centuries after the old tales of the Edge, and you don't need to have read any other Edge Chronicles book to follow it.

What to read next

If they want more of this world, try Beyond the Deepwoods. It's the story of Twig, a boy raised by woodtrolls who knows he doesn't belong (and who, like Nate, can't stand the taste of tripweed).