Editorial Content for The Imaginery

Did you ever have an imaginary friend growing up? Well, this book answers that question and then takes it to a whole new level, inviting readers into an exciting and vibrant world where imaginary characters exist in a sub-world, and only those with powerful minds can view them. A. F. Harrold’s THE IMAGINARY focuses on a young girl named Amanda and her imaginary friend, Rudger, who happily spend their afternoons going on adventures in worlds all their own. But all this is disrupted when a sinister man named Mr. Bunting --- and his terrifying imaginary friend, a little girl with gray skin, long black hair and black holes for eyes (a la The Ring) begin hunting down Amanda and Rudger. Mr. Bunting hopes to eat Rudger in order to extend his eternal life. However, when Amanda gets hit by a car and falls into a coma, Rudger is ripped away from his best friend, and it’s up to him, his other fellow imaginaries and a little help from Amanda’s special mother to save the day.

This book started out a bit slow for me --- it felt like cliché, featuring a young girl who doesn’t have many friends but has a powerful imagination. And to be honest, I didn’t like Amanda, and I never really grew to like her. I was never entirely sure of her age, so when she acted bratty and selfish towards Rudger, and jokingly used him as blame for little accidents she caused around the house, she came across as immature and unpleasant. I didn’t understand why Rudger was so loyally devoted to her, since it didn’t seem like his affection was reciprocated. The haziness of her age just muddled the character, and she wasn’t terribly distinct.

 Pun completely intended, this book was very imaginative, magically so, and I think it will delight many young readers

Rudger, however, was very well done --- he was just complex enough to challenge young readers but also very empathetic and endearing. The real standout characters, though, were Mr. Bunting and his imaginary because THEY WERE TERRIFYING. I am 22 years old and I had the pants scared off me by the prospect of this immortal being with a dimensional vacuum for a mouth walking around consuming people. And some of the scenes where Amanda and Rudger faced off with his imaginary were straight out of a horror film --- they downright gave me the creeps. And the brilliant illustrations by Emily Gravett made it all even scarier. That being said, it might honestly frighten some younger readers.

All of the scenes with those two characters were chilling, but unfortunately, they also helped point out how uneven the tone of the novel was. It would jarringly shift from the mundane, normal storyline to petrifying horror, and I think the change was too severe and abrupt for a children’s book. The ending was heartwarming enough to make up for it, and I closed the book feeling more or less satisfied. My one major wish was that they focused on the Agency more --- the place where all the imaginary characters find new kids to play with after their original creators grow too old for them. I thought that was ingenious and original, and I wanted to know much more about that. I personally would have rather spent more time on that than with Rudger trying to reunite with Amanda (and I say that both keeping in mind and ignoring my opinion regarding Amanda as a character).

 Pun completely intended, this book was very imaginative, magically so, and I think it will delight many young readers as well as charm the adults reading with them, even if they did not have an imaginary friend growing up. Harrold also managed to sprinkle in some expertly decisive commentary regarding how parents should react to their children having imaginative friends. It purported a great message of parents supporting their children’s imagination and allowing them to express themselves in these young formative years. Overall, a solid book, and I highly recommend it to families with young ones, even though it gets a little too spooky every now and then.