I have just finished reading The Midnight Guardians with Esther and William

We all agree it is our new favourite book

For Esther it beats her beloved The Silver Sword

Which is high praise indeed

And for me …

… It is the best book I have read for a very very long time

This book is one that I will always treasure

And like the special books of my childhood

One I will return to many times over the years

And always remember exactly where and when and how I read it

This is a story of love and loss

A story of courage and hope

A story of the battle between light and darkness

This is a a clever combination of myth, magic and history

This is The Midnight Guardians

I love stories that are set in the Second World War

I always have done and this is a story set within and beside the war

The story of an evacuee whose imaginary friends come to life

To help him save his sister from The Blitz in London

But intertwined with the horror brought by the Nazis

Are the terrifying dark forces of the Midwinter King

This book brings a stunning mix of mythology, magic and history

This book is incredibly special and reading it I felt like it had been written especially for me

I Immediately knew how to do the voices of each character

I could see them as clearly as I could see my own children in front of me

The story played in my mind like a film

I felt a strong connection to Col, Ruth and the Guardians

I felt such empathy for them

Parts of this book had us laughing out loud

Parts I could hardly read through the lump in my throat

And the rivers of tears

And poor old William’s tears too!!

There were parts of the story when we could not stop reading as we just had to see how events unfolded

Parts when we were so engaged we felt like we were part of the story

At one part Col is losing one of his guardians

Pendlebury, the magical tiger, is injured and dying

They carry her to try to reach a safe place to save her

The scene just reminded me so much of David carrying our baby daughter back to God when she died

It is such a beautiful poignant moment in the story

This book deals with loss and grief really well

It talks about the ones we love and lose never really being lost

They are always close by

Just a hair’s breadth away

Esther and William have been so invested in this story

That it feeds into every conversation and all their play

They love the Guardians

Pendlebury’s jokes

The King of Rogues and Mr Noakes’ bickering

We have laughed so much with these wonderful characters

There are some standalone chapters where the writing is just phenomenal

The fairies chapter is just so so so good

And the giants Gog and Magog are exceptionally well written

In contrast to the laugh out loud pages

Some of the Midwinter king and Col interactions are quite chilling

I did think the children might have nightmares but they didn’t

I think my favourite characters are Pendlebury and Ruth

Ruth intrigued us all from the start

And we loved how her story unfolded through the book

As we finished the book Esther said that the mythological magical side of the story

Was representing what was happening in the war

The battle of light against darkness

People coming together to turn against and fight evil

She was right

And it is beautifully done

The historical  notes at the end of the book are brilliant

As is the powerful message about the kinder transport and the holocaust

The importance of knowing facts in order to prevent anything like that ever happening again

The Midnight Guardians is without any doubt the best book I have read in a very very long time …

… and I cannot wait to read it all over again