The Giant under the snow' is the tale of three children who find themselves pulled against their will into the final battle of a secret war that began thousands of years ago. In the last few days before christmas, Jonquil discovers an ancient belt buckle on a strange earth mound in the forest. It quickly becomes clear that the buckle is more than it seems, and there are dark forces who will do anything to possess it.....as the snow falls and the fog descends, the children realise they have no choice but to see it through to the end.

Beautifully written and wonderfully atmospheric, the author taps into that sense of how different the world feels when thick snow and fog change the landscape. A normally busy street can feel very creepy on a dark foggy night. Particularly when you realise a mysterious black hound is trailing your every move..... ( )

I always remembered The Giant Under the Snow as a ‘juvenile fantasy’, a few creepy set pieces dropped here and there into a standard runaround – and maybe it could have done with more unusual third act – but I was surprised at how subtle it was, how suspenseful, and how incredibly atmospheric. Beginning in the last days of the school term before the Christmas holidays, there isn’t a page that isn’t dizzying with mist, brutally whirling with snow, dark as dark gets, or slippy underfoot with midnight frost. Even the scenes in Jonk’s home or the town museum have that slightly coddled, constricted atmosphere of being nudged slightly out of the routine. Gordon’s characters have the kind of naturalistic awkardness familiar from Alan Garner’s Owl Service or Elidor, where more is said with body language or an exclamation – and though it feels a bit worthy and ’15-Up’, it suits these stories of the supernatural to have things spelled out as little as possible.

There’s a good interview with Gordon on the MR James fansite, Ghosts and Scholars. He’s quite gracious, recognising James as an influence but not a conscious one. Garner gets a brief mention, and Gordon says he hadn’t read him before he wrote Giant, but the style, the aim, the world of each writer is very close to the other’s. Like Elidor, Giant has two boys and a girl protecting treasure from eerie, otherworldly soldiers – the bizarre and frightening side-by-side with the mundane (which always works for me). In each one, the enemy force is confronted in the ruins of slum clearance. Giant makes a less specific raid on British folklore and history, and its prose is less sparse, more atmospheric. Its scares are more deliberate, and its fantastical elements are more fairy tale: the little black velvet rucksacks that help the children fly, for example.

I absolutely loved the descriptions of their flight – you get the feeling Gordon must have spent a lot of time flying planes or gliders during the war, from the description of following this or that air current, twisting and diving and dropping through the air, caught on a gust of snow and carried out into deafening silence. At one point, after a skirmish with the nasties in the open, frozen fields, the children fly back into the city (Norwich?) just within the glow of streetlights, ‘as if it would warm them.’ A lovely December read. ( )

We listened to this as an audio book. The language and vocab were a little more challenging than some other kids books we have listened to, but certainly not beyond either of my kids. My 10 year old enjoyed it but my 8 year old couldn't wait for it to finish. The plot was interesting enough but it didn't grab me. ( )