Home › Find a book › Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
by Jessica Townsend
Morrigan is cursed and due to die at midnight. A stranger smuggles her instead into a hidden city, where she must pass four trials to be allowed to stay.
A story about children and magical creatures, adventurous and funny in tone. We would put it with children of 9–12, and at a reading age of about 10 for reading alone.
Worth knowing before you buy
- Mild peril
None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.
Part of a series
This is book 1 of the Nevermoor series, so there is more to read if it goes down well — which is worth a great deal with a reluctant reader.
Our take on this book
Morrigan Crow is a cursed child, blamed for every misfortune in her town and fated to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday — until a red-haired stranger named Jupiter North spirits her away to the hidden city of Nevermoor, where to be allowed to stay she must compete against hundreds of children in four dangerous trials, with no idea what her own special talent is. Jessica Townsend has drawn the obvious comparison to Harry Potter, and it is fair: a magical hidden world, a warm found-family, a mystery about the heroine herself, all delivered with tremendous invention and pace. The peril is real but the tone is bright and often funny, and Nevermoor itself — a hotel with rooms that redecorate to your mood, a giant talking cat — is a place children long to move into. For a nine- to twelve-year-old it is a big, warm, propulsive fantasy and the start of a series they will race through.
If they like this, try these
Chosen by matching age, reading age, tone and subject — not by what is selling.
Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan CrowJessica Townsend
Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan CrowJessica Townsend
The BFGRoald Dahl
Or let them write their own.
Nothing gets a child reading like a story they invented themselves. Your child plans the characters and the plot, and we write, illustrate and print it as a real book with their name on the cover as the author.
Find another book
Tell us the age, the reading age and what they like, and we will suggest a handful.