The Owl Service: The much-loved classic adventure story for children - Softcover

Garner, Alan

3.67

7,416 ratings by Goodreads

9780008248505: The Owl Service: The much-loved classic adventure story for children

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0008248508 ISBN 13: 9780008248505

Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, 2017

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A 50th Anniversary Edition featuring a new introduction by Philip Pullman, THE OWL SERVICE is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships.

It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody’s lives.

Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend – a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent that only by accepting and facing the situation can it be resolved.

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Review:

“Alan Garner’s fiction is something special. Garner’s fantasies were smart and challenging, based in the here and the now, in which real English places emerged from the shadows of folklore, and in which people found themselves walking, living and battling their way through the dreams and patterns of myth.”― Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline

“Alan Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful. His work is where human emotion and mythic resonance, sexuality and geology, modernity and memory and craftsmanship meet and cross-fertilise. Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that’s the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration.”― Philip Pullman

ON WEIRDSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN: “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is one of the most important books in children’s fantasy. It has been an enormous inspiration to me and countless other writers, and is as enjoyable and fascinating now as it was when I first read it, wide-eyed and mesmerised, at the age of ten.”― Garth Nix

From the Back Cover:

Read by Robert Powell

Huw looked at Gwyn, and looked through him. "She is coming," he said. "She won't be long now."

It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling; then the eyes appear from behind the plaster. Something is stirring in the valley; something old and powerful. Alison, Gwyn and Roger can all feel it, but only Huw seems to really understand it.

As the invevitable confrontation between past and present draws nearer, Gwyn needs to find the strength to stall the disaster that hangs over them.

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