Children of the Black Glass, Anthony Peckham
Children of the Black Glass, Anthony Peckham
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Children of the Black Glass

Author: Anthony Peckham

Narrator: Peter Noble

Unabridged: 9 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/07/2023


Synopsis

Howl’s Moving Castle meets Christopher Paolini in this “dark and flinty” (Booklist) middle grade fantasy, set in a world as mesmerizing as it is menacing, following children on a quest to save their father who get embroiled in the sinister agendas of rival sorcerers.

In an unkind alternate past, somewhere between the Stone Age and a Metal Age, Tell and his sister Wren live in a small mountain village that makes its living off black glass mines and runs on brutal laws. When their father is blinded in a mining accident, the law dictates he has thirty days to regain his sight and be capable of working at the same level as before or be put to death.

Faced with this dire future, Tell and Wren make the forbidden treacherous journey to the legendary city of Halfway, halfway down the mountain, to trade their father’s haul of the valuable black glass for the medicine to cure him. The city, ruled by five powerful female sorcerers, at first dazzles the siblings. But beneath Halfway’s glittery surface seethes ambition, violence, prejudice, blackmail, and impending chaos.

Without knowing it, Tell and Wren have walked straight into a sorcerers’ coup. Over the next twelve days, they must scramble first to save themselves, then their new friends, as allegiances shift and prejudices crack open to show who has true power.

About Anthony Peckham

Anthony (Tony) Peckham is a South African–born screenwriter, surfer, and farmer who now lives on an island in the Pacific. Decades ago, while exploring a remote, high-altitude landscape with his children, he came upon a mountain made of black glass which inspired his debut novel. His other work includes Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. He is a Writers Guild of America Award winner and an NAACP Image Award nominee. Tony is the author of the Children of the Black Glass middle grade series. You can find him online at AnthonyPeckham.com.    


Reviews

Goodreads review by Shilo on April 02, 2023

This was fantastic! Much darker than I was expecting, and such an original story! The harshness of their world was so realistic and felt so immediate and real - despite being so far from the realm of anything I have known. That takes skill. The writing itself was excellent; clear, concise, full of p......more

Goodreads review by Laura on February 18, 2023

I wanted to love this book. Really. But... once we get down the mountain to Halfway, once we start trying to sell the glass and defeat the people who would cheat Tell and Wren, it starts to become just one of many vaguely medieval societies with sects/clans/guilds/groups fighting for dominance and t......more

Goodreads review by Jan on January 19, 2023

What I liked: Children of the Black Glass is a high fantasy debut story for Middle-grade readers. Wren and Tell are part of a community of remote mountain dwellers whose sole income is from mining black glass. They travel to a city every year to trade it and have all kinds of outdated ways compared t......more

Goodreads review by erebus on May 23, 2023

I like it when I get to read new material in the same year as it is released, so this was a good find! In a remote mountain village, the people mine a vein of obsidian which they sell to the Peele of the city half-way down the mountain. Most of the black glass is used to make tools and jewelry, but......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on March 07, 2023

4.5 stars rounded up to 5 Children of the Black Glass is the first book in a nuanced new series from Anthony Peckham. At the center of the story are Tell and Rumi, siblings who have already lost their mother and most likely will lose their father, too. With their family and way of life crumbling aroun......more