Published: 02/01/2018
The Costa Children’s Book of the Year 2017. A wild adventure, The Explorer nods to storytelling’s golden age but remains alive and fresh with characters that leap from the page. An instant classic.
Winner of the 2017 Costa Book Awards Children's Award
Longlisted for The CILIP Carnegie Medal 2018
From his seat in the tiny aeroplane, Fred watches as the mysteries of the Amazon jungle pass by below him.
He has always dreamed of becoming an explorer, of making history and of reading his name amongst the lists of great discoveries. If only he could land and look about him.
As the plane crashes into the canopy, Fred is suddenly left without a choice.
He and the three other children may be alive, but the jungle is a vast, untamed place. With no hope of rescue, the chance of getting home feels impossibly small. Except, it seems, someone has been there before them...
Katherine Rundell spent her childhood in Africa and parts of Europe before settling in the UK. She is the author of Rooftoppers, a story of one girl’s adventures across the rooftops of Paris, which won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781408882191
Number of pages: 416
Weight: 370 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Katherine Rundell just gets better and better. I loved The Explorer. On one level it's a very exciting adventure story of four children fighting for survival in the Amazon - but it's also saying profound things about human nature and love and loss.' - Jacqueline Wilson
'There's a gritty solidity to the horrors and the beauties, and a completely convincing depth to the characters, all of whom I loved. Katherine Rundell is now unarguably in the first rank.' - Philip Pullman
'I love every one of Katherine Rundell's stories, but she gets more assured each time - this was everything I wanted it to be and more. Read it!' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Girl of Ink and Stars
'A magnificent adventure.' - Abi Elphinstone
'The Explorer by @kdbrundell is the best Amazon adventure since Journey to the River Sea. A bold, beautiful celebration of hearts with claws.' - Lauren St John
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“An exciting Amazon adventure with piranha, caimans and sloths in which "children find they are "braver than they think"”
The Explorer
Rundell writes that she
“wanted to write a book in which the children discover that they are braver than they think… and about children discovering that the world is more beautiful and complicated...
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“A breathtaking survival adventure - reminds us all to keep exploring”
I had seen a lot of press for this title and was fairly interested in it. When Bloomsbury sent me a review copy I was keen to start it.
What I thought was already going to be a good read, completely took my breath...
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“It's okay”
DNF
It's okay. Nicely written and the illustrations are lovely, but I just wasn't all that into it. Got about 40 pages in and just ran out of steam.
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