The Silver Arrow
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
'There's nothing so rare as a fantasy that elicits genuine wonder and that uses marvellous things to enrich a child's appreciation of ordinary ones. Lev Grossman's novel The Silver Arrow is something special.' WALL STREET JOURNAL _____________ Discover the magical, timeless children's adventure from Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians. Now a New York Times bestseller! When Kate is given a colossal steam train, the Silver Arrow, for her birthday, she can't believe her luck. After eleven years of waiting, adventure has finally found her! Soon the Silver Arrow is whisking Kate and her brother Tom to a magical station where their passengers stand ready to board. From the porcupine to the pangolin, each one is rare and wonderful. But these animals have been waiting a very long time too. Can Kate deliver them home ... before it's too late? _____________ Lev Grossman's first children's book is a journey you'll never forget: a rip-roaring adventure from desert plains to snow-covered mountains and everything in between. Packed with exciting creatures from the indignant porcupine to the lost polar bear and the adorable baby pangolin, The Silver Arrow is a classic story about saving our endangered animals and the places they live.
Featured Series
2 primary booksThe Silver Arrow is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2020 with contributions by Lev Grossman.
Reviews with the most likes.
Kate and her little brother are bored. Their parents are boring. They are sensible to the point of being just plain dull. Who isn't dull? Uncle Herbert. Apparently he's very irresponsible. Filthy rich, but irresponsible. Kate has never even met him. But, with her 11th birthday approaching, she decides to write him a letter. She's hoping he'll spend some of his riches on a fabulous present for her.
Needless to say, she is completely stunned when he sends her a steam train. Not a toy train, a real train. Her parents are furious, but she needs an adventure.
This is a fun, whimsical book that also has an important message in it. Want to know the message? You'll have to read it.
I really enjoyed the narrator. I think middle grade books really need an engaging narrator given the target audience. I loved the voices for Kate, and the animals.
I received a copy from Net Galley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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You really don't appreciate how incredibly colossal a steam locomotive is till one shows up parked on the street in front of your house. This one was about fifteen feet high and fifty feet long, and it had a headlight and a smokestack and a bell and a whole lot of pipes and pistons and rods and valve handles on it. The wheels alone were twice her height.
THE SILVER ARROW
The Silver Arrow
Life always seemed so interesting in books, but then when you had to actually live it nothing all that interesting ever seemed to happen. And unlike in books, you couldn't skip ahead past the boring parts.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Narnia
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
The Phantom Tollbooth
Tollbooth
Narnia
Deep in her heart Kate knew that. She knew that her problems weren't real problems, at least not compared with the kinds of problems kids had in stories. She wasn't being beaten, or starved, or forbidden to go to a royal ball, or sent into the woods by an evil stepparent to get eaten by wolves. She wasn't even an orphan! Weirdly, Kate sometimes caught herself actually wishing she had a problem like that-a zombie apocalypse, or an ancient curse, or an alien invasion, anything really-so that she could be a hero and survive and triumph against all the odds and save everybody.
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Silver Arrow
THE SILVER ARROW
She'd almost forgotten that the train could talk. There's a lot going on in your life when you have more urgent things to think about than a talking train.
