Kyle Bagsby’s Autumn Eternal is a quirky, cosy fantasy for 9 year olds about a boy whose drawings start coming to life.<\/p>\n
Kip Carringer lives above his aunt and uncle’s general store in Arno, a small town tucked inside a huge forest. It’s always autumn there. And the birds moo. (Yes, moo. Like cows.)<\/p>\n
Nobody else in town thinks this is odd. Kip does. Marleigh, his best friend, thinks he’s the odd one.<\/p>\n
Then Kip spots smoke rising from the woods by the river, where nobody lives. The town used to have a witch, so of course he and Marleigh go to look. Inside the empty cottage Kip finds an old book full of ink blots and blank pages. He decides it’ll make a nice sketchbook.<\/p>\n
The next morning, the creature he drew in it is stealing a pie off a windowsill.<\/p>\n
Squablins are part squirrel, part goblin, but mostly goblin. Watching two of them steer a runaway pumpkin cart into a vegetable stall is very silly indeed (one of them definitely sticks its tongue out).<\/p>\n
It reads a bit like a daydream that’s gone slightly wrong. Kip gets picked on at school by Gary Turner. The whole town still remembers the year he played a cornstalk in the school play and wet himself on stage, aged six. So when he writes that he’s the hero of Arno and wakes up in a full suit of armour, nobody’s impressed. They just laugh.<\/p>\n
Marleigh is the best bit. She teases him all the time, calls him “Kip Carringer” in full, and she’s always the one who knocks on the scary door first.<\/p>\n
There are a couple of darker notes. The witch is found sitting in her chair as a skeleton, which feels more sad than frightening. Something shadowy is watching Kip from the fog. Kip’s parents aren’t around (there was an accident when he was a baby), and Marleigh has lost her mum, though both are mentioned only briefly. It’s American too, with seventh grade and a Harvest Ball.<\/p>\n
If your reader fills notebooks with made-up creatures, they’ll love the idea of one climbing off the page. Who hasn’t wished for that?<\/p>\n
Kyle Bagsby has another fantasy in the library too. The Sword and the Fallen Star opens on a girl who counts the stars every night and can grow a dandelion in her cupped hands in the middle of winter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kyle Bagsby’s Autumn Eternal is a quirky, cosy fantasy for 9 year olds about a boy whose drawings start coming to life. Kip Carringer lives above his aunt and uncle’s general store in Arno, a small town tucked inside a huge forest. It’s always autumn there. And the birds moo. (Yes, moo. Like cows.) Nobody […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12282,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9446,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Sword and the Fallen Star","lr_seo_hook":"A boy whose drawings come to life in a town where it's always autumn."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[586],"class_list":["post-6856","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-kyle-bagsby"],"yoast_title":"Autumn Eternal by Kyle Bagsby | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A boy whose drawings come to life in a town where it's always autumn. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n