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The Iron ManTed Hughes
The Iron Man
by Ted Hughes
A giant made of metal walks out of the sea and is buried by frightened farmers. A boy befriends him, and then something far worse arrives from space.
A story about children and magical creatures, epic and thoughtful in tone. We would put it with children of 7–10, and at a reading age of about 9 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.
Our take on this book
A giant metal man walks off a clifftop into the sea, is smashed to pieces, and slowly puts himself back together — then eats his way through the county's farm machinery until a boy called Hogarth traps him and finds him a home in a scrapyard. And that is only the first half, before a creature the size of Australia lands from space and the Iron Man has to save the world. Ted Hughes was a poet, and it shows: the language is spare and strange and thunderously good read aloud, closer to a myth than a story. The Iron Man's dismembering and reassembly at the start is eerie rather than gory, and the tone throughout is more awe than fright. For a seven- to ten-year-old it is short but weighty, a book that feels bigger than its length and stays in the memory for the sheer oddness and grandeur of its images.
If they like this, try these
Chosen by matching age, reading age, tone and subject — not by what is selling.
The Iron WomanTed Hughes
Odd and the Frost GiantsNeil Gaiman
The Girl Who Drank the MoonKelly Barnhill
The MinpinsRoald 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.