Michael Tolkien – författare

To increase her sense of wonder Grace is chosen by Nature’s spirit guides and guardians to travel on ‘a funny sometimes fearful journey’. Her unlikely allies are small, often overlooked plants, flowers and insects. She seems to be about to discover what lies in and beyond the rainbow, but her decision to help a lost, bitter boy – Downcast Don – to rediscover ‘wonder’ diverts her through colourful and disturbing forests, down a well to find an underground forge, and into a meeting with an ancient desert giantess. Her chief guide, Heartsease, assures her this is all part of a search for rainbow wisdom, to see how all things and people matter.

Allowed then to climb the ‘Shining Stairway’, Grace is nearer the rainbow but in more danger of being sidetracked by strange, even dangerous forces. The promised places are beautiful and intriguing but she learns to look back below the surface of her adventures and to make important choices. Suddenly back in the everyday world she is still herself but more so because she can see and understand more acutely.

Farmers in their alpine valley are haunted by Fængler, a cunning old enchanter, who ruins their lives by using an ancient wishing chain of powerful stones to spoil crops and steal children, cows and goats.

Young Berwald and his sister Clara set out, without their parents knowing, to climb into the next valley, seize the chain, free their neighbourhood of fear, and wish for whatever they want. But they soon learn that the wild world beyond their home is full of strange forces – some good, some dark and twisted – and almost every wish they make adds new complications and disagreements.

Who can rescue them from this fearful and dangerous adventure? Before Adam, their angry and worried father, can reach them, he must learn to follow seemingly useless leads, and to listen carefully to the tale that lies behind the villain’s bitterness.

A timeless fantasy tale given new life and enchantment in this vivid retelling in verse.