Pog
In a rickety old house on the edge of a living, breathing forest, the story unfolds. Thirteen-year-old Penny and eleven-year old David have moved here from their sunny London home in an effort to make a fresh start with their father. The family is grief-stricken; their mother ‘arrives’ to the house late on moving day in the form of ashes in a bronze urn that makes its home on the mantelpiece.
Enter Pog Lumpkin, small and furry, wearing a woollen jacket, waistcoat and belt. He is one of the First Folk, whose job it is to guard a portal into a sinister world full of nefarious creatures that lies behind the house’s cellar door. He’s been living in the attic for years, protecting the portal (called ‘the Necessary’) with his enchanted staff. Despite meaning to stay invisible to humans, Pog reveals himself to the children and they become friends as he explains his mission. But Pog doesn’t know that dark powers have awakened deep within the forest, by the gnarled tree that grows in the clearing. And David, the most vulnerable of the family, succumbs to intense evil as he’s sucked into believing he can bring his mother back. Tension builds slowly over the chapters, rushing to a dramatic climax, filled with fantastical creatures. Pádraig Kenny has invented a cast of vivid, unforgettable characters in this lyrical tale, and at the centre is the small family whose grief may finally be able to bloom into a green shoot of hope.
