Suffolk children receive a Christmas present from Her Majesty the Queen

By Lucy Neill | 4 November 2026

Libraries across Suffolk are giving away free copies of Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell as part of The Queen’s Christmas Present, an initiative created as part of The National Year of Reading.

The National Literacy Trust and Her Majesty The Queen are working together to offer every Year 6 child and every home-educated child of the equivalent age across the UK a free special edition of the award-winning children’s book.

All 45 libraries have been set up as the designated collection point in Suffolk for home-educated children to receive their Christmas gift from The Queen.

Each special edition of Impossible Creatures will feature a unique royal stamp on the cover and a personal message from The Queen inside.

Anyone interested in collecting a copy of Impossible Creatures for their child to enjoy can complete this online form before Thursday 26 November stating which library you’d like to collect the book from.

Books can be collected from chosen libraries between Saturday 5 and 4pm on Thursday 24 December.

Erin Hamilton, Early Literacy and Youth Engagement Lead, said:

“We are really pleased to be part of this initiative which aims to ensure all children have a book of their own, one that will hopefully encourage them to read for pleasure.”

সম্পর্কে Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell

Christopher is stunned when he discovers a Way-Between from our world to the Archipelago: a cluster of magical islands where all the creatures of myth still live and breed and thrive in their thousands.

There he meets Mal: a girl from the islands, who is in possession of a flying coat and a baby griffin, and who is being pursued by a killer.

Together they embark on an urgent quest to discover why the creatures are suddenly perishing, voyaging across the wild splendour of the Archipelago, where sphinxes hold secrets and centaurs do murder, in a bid to save both the islands and the world beyond them from a rising evil – before it’s too late.