The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner is a proper old fashioned English fantasy for 11 year olds, set on a real hill in Cheshire.<\/p>\n
Colin and Susan are staying with the Mossocks at Highmost Redmanhey, a farm on the southern slope of Alderley Edge. Once a week Gowther and Bess ride home in the cart and the two children walk back through the wood instead. Every week they search.<\/p>\n
They are looking for Cadellin Silverbrow, the wizard who took them into the hill, and he will not answer. The Holywell stays a crack in the rock. The boulder stays a boulder. They are properly hurt by it, and half wish they had never found out that magic was there at all.<\/p>\n
Then Colin sees something in the old quarry. Flat, shapeless, changing size as it moves, with two red points of light somewhere near the middle.<\/p>\n
This is the second Alderley book and Garner says so himself in the first chapter. How Colin and Susan first came into the world of magic, he writes, is not part of this story. Your reader can follow it cold, but they will spend the early chapters catching up rather than settling in.<\/p>\n
What sets it apart is the writing. Garner does not simplify anything for anyone. Gowther and Bess speak broad Cheshire and it is written exactly as they say it. The elves speak in stiff, formal English full of oaths and warnings. The place names are real ones you could find on a map, which is unsettling in the best possible way.<\/p>\n
It is also a frightening book and it means to be. The thing in the quarry is not explained for a long time. An arrow lands in the path between the children’s feet in the dark, with a voice above them promising more. The wood they know turns alien on them in a single page.<\/p>\n
So this wants a confident reader. The dialect takes a few pages to click and there is no glossary. If your reader stalls on Gowther, try reading his lines aloud and it usually falls into place.<\/p>\n
It suits a child who already likes the old, cold end of fantasy. Not quests with maps and banter. More the feeling that something very ancient is under the ground where you walk the dog.<\/p>\n
For where all this began, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen has Colin and Susan chased across the Edge and taken down into the hill, to a band of knights asleep beside their horses, waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner is a proper old fashioned English fantasy for 11 year olds, set on a real hill in Cheshire. Colin and Susan are staying with the Mossocks at Highmost Redmanhey, a farm on the southern slope of Alderley Edge. Once a week Gowther and Bess ride home in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10650,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9513,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Weirdstone of Brisingamen","lr_seo_hook":"Colin and Susan on Alderley Edge, and the wizard has stopped answering."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[55],"class_list":["post-9252","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-alan-garner"],"yoast_title":"The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Colin and Susan on Alderley Edge, and the wizard has stopped answering. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n