The Imaginary

by A.F. Harrold, Emily Gravett (Illustrator)

Overview

Rudger is Amanda Shuffleup's imaginary friend. Nobody else can see Rudger—until the evil Mr. Bunting arrives at Amanda's door. Mr. Bunting hunts imaginaries. Rumor has it that he even eats them. And now he's found Rudger.

Soon Rudger is alone, and running for his imaginary life. He needs to find Amanda before Mr. Bunting catches him—and before Amanda forgets him and he fades away to nothing. But how can an unreal boy stand alone in the real world?

In the vein of Coraline, this gripping take on imaginary friends comes to life in a lush package: beautiful illustrations (10 in full color) by acclaimed artist Emily Gravett, a foiled and debossed case cover, printed endpapers, and deckled page edges.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802738110
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	03/03/2015
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	799,327
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 12.00(h) x 3.60(d)
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

A.F. Harrold is an English author and poet who writes and performs for adults and children. He is the owner of many books, a handful of hats, a few good ideas, and one beard. He lives in Reading, England with a stand-up comedian and two cats. Visit him online at www.afharrold.co.uk.

Emily Gravett is the author and illustrator of numerous children's books, including Wolves, winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Award for Illustration; and Orange Pear Apple Bear, a Quills Award finalist and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. Emily lives in Brighton, England, with her partner, their daughter, and the family dog.

Editorial Reviews

Emily Gravett's delicate illustrations (and dazzling cover art), with soft lines in mostly black and white, capture the motion of Amanda and Rudger's adventures, but the tranquillity of play too…For all its flirtations with danger, The Imaginary is most affecting and lovely when describing powerful relationships—the ones we need and the ones we want, and how this shifts, surprising us, over the course of our lives.

The New York Times Book Review - Renee Dale

01/19/2015
Echoes of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Toy Story can be detected in Harrold’s (the Fizzlebert Stump books) eerie standalone fantasy. Creative children like Amanda Shuffleup can fashion imaginary friends like Rudger, a boy who unexpectedly manifests in Amanda’s wardrobe one day. Most of the time adults don’t see a thing, but then there are sinister strangers like Mr. Bunting, whose moustache hides a terrifying maw designed to gobble up imaginaries—even though Mr. Bunting seems to have an imaginary companion of his own. As if this weren’t bad enough, Rudger is threatened by Fading—slow, silent erasure caused by a child’s forgetting—when Amanda is injured in an accident. The intervention of Zinzan, a wise old alley cat, provides a temporary refuge, but Rudger can only overcome his plight by asserting his own memory and vision. Part horror story, part gentle parable, Harrold’s story moves along at a steady clip, thanks to some very tense sequences and Gravett’s typically polished illustrations, which feature spikes of lurid color and haunting imagery. Ages 8–12. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Harrold offers an appealingly childcentric world with hefty doses of scare and malevolence. . . . Gravett's several double-page, full-color illustrations, along with lively margin drawings, sweetly blend the real with the imaginary, giving Amanda and Rudger appealing personality—and deliver chills in the form of Mr. Bunting and his own dreadfully spooky imaginary companion. Wonderfully entertaining.” —starred review, Kirkus Reviews

“[An] inventive mix of humor and suspense. . . . The author is equally adept at depicting lighthearted characterizations and scenes that are truly scary. Gravett's illustrations provide excellent support for the story. . . A great choice for readers who like fantastic tales with a dose of true scariness.” —starred review, School Library Journal

“Emily Gravett's delicate illustrations (and dazzling cover art) . . . capture the motion of Amanda and Rudger's adventures, but the tranquility of play too. . . . For all its flirtations with danger, 'The Imaginary' is most affecting and lovely when describing powerful relationships — the ones we need and the ones we want, and how this shifts, surprising us, over the course of our lives.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Echoes of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Toy Story can be detected in Harrold's (the Fizzlebert Stump books) eerie standalone fantasy. . . . Harrold's story moves along at a steady clip, thanks to some very tense sequences and Gravett's typically polished illustrations, which feature spikes of lurid color and haunting imagery.” —Publishers Weekly

“Gravett's full color double-page spreads are magnificent in their capture of the otherworldly tone of the novel. . . The buoyancy and joy in the scenes where Amanda and Rudger take a few ordinary objects and dream up whole worlds of entertainment may have readers wishing they had such a perfect friend.” —BCCB

“[A] nuanced exploration of the relationship between imagination and memory. . . . Gravett's illustrations use transparency and opacity, color and black-and-white to indicate how real everyone in a scene is to everyone else.” —The Horn Book Magazine

“[A] winningly whimsical celebration of the imagination, beautifully enhanced by both black-and-white and full-color illustrations by Kate Greenaway Medal–winning Gravett. Together, the text and pictures make this a very real treat.” —Booklist

From the Publisher

★ 02/01/2015
Gr 4–7—This inventive mix of humor and suspense starts with the amusing appearance of Amanda's imaginary friend, Rudger. Their summer of make-believe adventures quickly darkens, though, when Mr. Bunting shows up. He's a grown-up who can not only see "Imaginaries" like Rudger, but also eats them to prolong his own life. After a narrow escape from Bunting and his creepy sidekick, a girl who's also an Imaginary, the narrative shifts from Amanda to Rudger. The boy discovers a secret library full of other imaginary people and creatures, then finds his way back to Amanda for a final confrontation with Bunting. The premise of the Imaginaries is unveiled nicely, with a plot that's never predictable. The author is equally adept at depicting lighthearted characterizations and scenes that are truly scary. Gravett's illustrations provide excellent support for the story, ranging from black-and-white spot art to full-page images, along with several full-color spreads. Some are fun, while others are chilling, such as the series of images that uses alternating all-black pages to lead into a harrowing portrait of the evil Imaginary girl, staring right at Amanda as she tries to hide. The eerie moments never overwhelm the larger story, though, and questions about the power and limits of imagination provide some food for thought amid the action. VERDICT A great choice for readers who like fantastic tales with a dose of true scariness.—Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville Public Library, OR

School Library Journal

★ 2015-01-10
What happens to the imaginary friends we make when we are so little we can't remember them later on? Amanda's friend Rudger simply appears one day in Amanda's wardrobe and becomes her constant companion—and hers alone. He finds that sharing in Amanda's rich and adventurous imagination has its rewards but some significant dangers and challenges. There's the creepy Mr. Bunting, an ancient man in Hawaiian-print shirt and shorts who, it turns out, stays alive by devouring children's imaginary friends. There's the possibility of being forgotten, when age or injury—or death?—causes the bond to weaken. When Amanda is hit by a car, Rudger is able to take refuge in a library, the one place apart from children's company where sufficient imagination dwells to keep imaginary companions from fading. Rudger's attempts to connect with a boy too young to enjoy his unexpected appearance and to one of Amanda's less versatile friends are ill-starred. A harrowing hospital scene is satisfyingly gruesome though not disastrous. Harrold offers an appealingly childcentric world with hefty doses of scare and malevolence to explore the possibilities of imaginary beings with feelings of their own. Gravett's several double-page, full-color illustrations, along with lively margin drawings, sweetly blend the real with the imaginary, giving Amanda and Rudger appealing personality—and deliver chills in the form of Mr. Bunting and his own dreadfully spooky imaginary companion. Wonderfully entertaining. (Fantasy. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews

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