Katherine Rundell's "Impossible Creatures: The Poisoned King" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

Distinctive features of Impossible Creatures: The Poisoned King

• Rundell’s superb storytelling continues in Book 2 with a return to the Archipelago and its sphinxes and dragons, including the irrepressible miniature dragon, Jacques (who has lost his flame) and the brilliant debut of the Royal Gagana birds found only on the island of Dousha who are intensely loyal to Princess Anya 
• Protagonist Christopher is back from Book 1 a bit older and wiser, and he is joined by Anya who is battling “a hunger for justice and a thirst for revenge” 
• Quest and children with agency are features of Rundell stories and this time the children must find the source of the poison that has killed many dragons to prevent their extinction while also finding justice and proving the guilt of Uncle Claude  
• Reading Rundell is a joy: her prose is perfection and she sharpens the reader’s pleasure with the clarity and vividness of her descriptions, her clever sense of humour and the directness of her gaze, she draws you into the story immediately and, like the flicking of a switch, you are transported to another world
• ‘The Guardian’s Bestiary’ which is an illustrated glossary of all the creatures we come across throughout the story has moved to the back of the book and been extended 
• There is no shrinking from death, danger and violence and some confronting deeds and decisions must be made with blood and gore as well as great food 
• Thrilling and dangerous adventures follow each other swiftly and are linked with ecological and ethical concerns
• The original proposed trilogy is heading for a five book series, and book three is due out mid 2026. I can’t wait!  

Ways to use Impossible Creatures: The Poisoned King in the classroom

Impossible Creatures: The Poisoned King would reward close study.  My review of the first book in the series just titled Impossible Creatures can be found at the Five Senses blog archive in February 2024 and contains some activities equally well suited to the sequel including an introduction to genre and its conventions and wide reading in fantasy suggestions. My focus in this blog is to consider the value of an author study. However, a hallmark of Impossible Creatures: The Poisoned King is how it captures the big issues. In a review for Readings books Kim Gruschow (August 2025) says Rundell is concerned about the “hoarding of wealth as a malignant pursuit” and the very real threat of the extinction of many species. These are weighty concerns and yet Rundell makes them part of the reader’s concerns as well, through her vivid characterisation and description and impeccable word choice. The difference between justice and revenge is also explored in this novel and the benefit of collaborative work is celebrated. Any close study could be enriched a consideration of the ethical decisions required of children in the novel.

Organising an author study

An author study is a  search for patterns and distinctive features of multiple texts by one author. There is a great deal of value in engaging with more than one text by the same author. Katherine Rundell is an adventurous and interesting author for students to explore.  

Introduce Rundell to the class with this brief (and completely true) outline which is closely related to her novels. Ask students to label each statement as true or false.

• She swam in the Amazon River
• She caught tarantulas, built jungle fires and carefully gutted a piranha
• She ate a tarantula 
• She has taken trapeze lessons
• She has walked on rooftops in Oxford
• She writes survival stories, in which children struggle to stay alive against the odds

You could follow this introduction with her reading from one of her novels, The Explorer and then eating a dead and ethically-sourced tarantula!

• Katherine Rundell reading from The Explorer

Blurbs and covers from the following books can be found below. This also presents an opportunity to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of ‘blurbs’ and to invite students to write better ones when they have finished reading the books. Ask students to match the blurbs with the covers below.  

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. (Publisher’s blurb) 

Feo's life is extraordinary. Her mother trains domesticated wolves to be able to fend for themselves in the snowy wilderness of Russia, and Feo is following in her footsteps to become a wolf wilder. She loves taking care of the wolves, especially the three who stay at the house because they refuse to leave Feo, even though they've already been wilded … When her mother is taken captive, Feo must travel through the cold, harsh woods to save her--and learn from her wolves how to survive.  (Publisher’s blurb) 

Vita set her jaw, and nodded at New York City in greeting, as a boxer greets an opponent before a fight. Fresh off the boat from England, Vita Marlowe has a job to do. Her beloved grandfather Jack has been cheated out of his home and possessions by a notorious conman with Mafia connections. Seeing Jack's spirit is broken, Vita is desperate to make him happy again, so she devises a plan to outwit his enemies and recover his home. She finds a young pickpocket, working the streets of the city. And, nearby, two boys with highly unusual skills and secrets of their own are about to be pulled into her lawless, death-defying plan. (Publisher’s blurb) 

My mother is still alive, and she is going to come for me one day.
Everyone thinks that Sophie is an orphan. Found floating in a cello case and swaddled in a Beethoven score, she is the only recorded female survivor of a shipwreck on the English Channel. But Sophie remembers seeing her mother wave for help... (Publisher’s blurb) 

Wilhelmina Silver's world is golden. Living half-wild on an African farm with her horse, her monkey and her best friend, every day is beautiful. 
But when her home is sold and Will is sent away to boarding school in England, the world becomes impossibly difficult. For lions and hyenas are nothing compared to a pack of schoolgirls. Where can a girl run to in London? And will she have the courage to survive? Publisher’s blurb)

Students select an extra Rundell book they would like to read. 

Pair Task: Re-read the first two pages of each novel you’ve read

• In pairs identify features of Rundell’s craft that engage the reader in her narrative
• Share features to build a list
• Use these features as you write the first two pages (500 words) of a similar style adolescent adventure novel (individual) 

Some distinctive features of Rundell’s novels they might discover 

• Kids rule – they collaborate and work as a team, fight their fears, often with the help of others, and prevail
• Adults are often absent or singular friends or foes
• Settings are vivid, detailed and exotic
• Characters face peril, with both physical and emotional danger
• Use of humour and exaggeration

Form groups to work on the same novel

• Discuss what features of Rundell’s craft and style you can find that reminded you of her first novel?
• Share findings in a multimodal presentation to the class e.g. PowerPoint, Pecha Kucha, group talk

Task: write a  Feature Article task (pair work)

Write a feature article suitable for an online adolescent reading site about Rundell as an author and include images and some background on Rundell. Discuss the key features of Rundell’s suite of books and predict what her next book could be about, based on the ones you have read. Consider 

• What elements would it contain?
• What issues might it address?
• What possible setting it could have?
• What sorts of characters might inhabit it? 

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English 7-10 syllabus

Text requirements: Impossible Creatures: The Poisoned King is a novel (extended prose) and a quality multimodal text from a British author.  It includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.
Looking for more classroom texts for Stage 4 students? Browse our Year 7 texts and study guides and Year 8 texts and study guides at Five Senses Education.

Concepts could include Genre • Intertextuality • Theme.

Relevant NSW English 7-10 Syllabus content

Reading, viewing and listening to texts

A student uses a range of personal, creative and critical strategies to read texts that are complex in their ideas and construction EN4-RVL-01

Reading, viewing and listening for meaning

• Explore the main ideas and thematic concerns posed by a text for meaning
• Engage with the ways texts contain layers of meaning, or multiple meanings
• Identify and understand that relevant prior knowledge and personal experience enables and enhances understanding when reading, viewing or listening to texts
• Explain personal responses to characters, situations and issues in texts, recognising the role of written, oral or visual language in influencing these personal responses

Understanding and responding to texts B

A student examines and explains how texts represent ideas, experiences and values EN4-URB-01

Theme

• Understand how repetition, patterning and language features used within a text communicate ideas about social, personal, ethical and philosophical issues and experiences, and demonstrate this understanding through written, spoken, visual and multimodal responses

Understanding and responding to texts C

A student identifies and explains ways of valuing texts and the connections between them EN4-URC-01

Genre 

• Understand how a genre addresses its purpose through patterns of textual elements, such as structure, choice of language, character archetypes and settings, and apply these patterns in own texts
• Analyse how texts can participate in larger, established patterns of narrative, purpose, theme and tone by exhibiting and challenging conventions, and experiment with conventions in own texts
• Explore particular genres to identify ways they may be adapted to different modes and media, or refreshed by combining with other genres, and experiment with these in own texts

Intertextuality 

• Analyse how texts can draw on elements of other texts to enrich meaning
• Understand how and why texts can be adapted, appropriated or transformed for different contexts, purposes and audiences, and experiment with adaptations, appropriations and transformations in own work

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023) 

Connecting texts

Connecting texts to famous fantasy and mythology

Connecting texts for author study