A.S. Byatt's new fantasy

Here, in its entirety, is a review of a new book by A.S. Byatt called The Children’s Book
Review by Sophie Gee.

In 2003, AS Byatt wrote a notorious New York Times editorial saying that JK Rowling’s world is “for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip ... Nobody is trying to save or destroy anything beyond Harry Potter and his friends and family.” Byatt found Rowling imaginatively parochial. She also thought Harry Potter wasn’t properly magical but made up of “derivative narrative clichés” that appeal to crudely literal imaginations. Real fantasy, Byatt argued, has a “sense of mystery, powerful forces, dangerous creatures in dark forests”.