Alan Garner0.0 Mary wanted to learn to read and asked her stonemason father for a book. In reply, he sent her into a cavern deep under the hills where the stone was quarried. There she found a sand-floored chamber where, in the light of her candle, she could see the marks left by breaking waves in the rock above her head and, on the wall, the figure of a bull, a stonemason's mark, and the outline of a hand that exactly matched her own. Loodking down, she saw a myriad of footprints made by earlier generations of her family and, in a timeless moment, felt herself surrounded by a throng of people. When she got back home, her father did give her a book - but it was a different one from what she had expected.
Abel's place in his familiar, mouse world has always been secure; he had an allowance from his mother, a comfortable home, and a lovely wife, Amanda. But one stormy August day, furious flood water carry him off and dump him on an uninhabited island. Despite his determination and stubborn resourcefulness--he tried crossing the river with boats and ropes and even on stepping-stones--Abel can't find a way to get back home. Days, then weeks and months, pass. Slowly, his soft habits disappear as he forages for food, fashions a warm nest in a hollow log, models clay statues of his family for company, and continues to brood on the problem of how to get across the river--and home. Abel's time on the island brings him a new understanding of the world he's separated from. Faced with the daily adventure of survival in his solitary, somewhat hostile domain, he is moved to reexamine the easy way of life he had always accepted and discovers skills and talents in himself that hold promise of a more meaningful life, if and when he should finally return to Mossville and his dear Amanda again.
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