Fly with Me

The children’s books of Katherine Rundell.

- KATHRYN SCHULZ

Rundell's grand theme, in worlds real and imagined, is the value of wildness.

Of all the many cultural products that the United Kingdom has exported to the United States-Aston Martins, Doc Martens, Burberry coats, Cadbury chocolates, a lingering and historically incongruous fascination with the Royal Family my favorite by far are first-rate fantasy novels for children.

To be clear, it's not that no such work is produced here at home. My own childhood which is to say, my own intellectual, aesthetic, and moral formation would have been gravely impoverished without the likes of L. Frank Baum and Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle and Ursula K. Le Guin.

But the U.K., oh my. Who knows what historical factors or contemporaneous living conditions have conspired to set so many brilliant minds of that relatively small country to the task of conjuring magical realms? Maybe it all began with Geoffrey of Monmouth; maybe it's just too much rain. Whatever the reason, we have the Brits to thank for some of the world's most compelling and enduring imaginary places for Narnia and Neverland, Wonderland and Middle-earth. They gave us "The Borrowers" and "The BFG"; they gave us Harry Potter and Lyra Belacqua and the Wart; they gave us "The Dark Is Rising" and "Five Children and It" and "The Lives of Christopher Chant."