Alan Garner has become, through a relatively modest output, one of the most important writers for children since 1960. His work is carefully crafted, economic, and precise. His early works-- The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley (1960), The Moon of Gomrath (1963), and Elidor (1965)--rely on the type of fantasy popularized by J. R. R. Tolkien, parading its mythic structures openly through symbolic and allusive names, quotations, and even notes and prefaces. His work has become less derivative; its use of myth or overt fantasy has become naturalized in a manner reminiscent of the works of William Wordsworth: from The Owl Service (1967) to The Stone Book Quartet (1983), Garner has grounded his sense of the numinous firmly in the land, mostly the land of his childhood, and his characters have become figures in a landscape, figures that are integral parts of the land in which they grow.

Alan Garner was...