This highly inventive novel is really two stories in one. Three children and their older cousin are trapped at home in a violent storm when electricity, food and communications are almost non-existent and life is dangerous and a bit scary. The cousin tells a story about a lost fairy-like creature – a skibbereen – who sets out full of hope and ignorance to find out what he is and where he belongs. The world of tooth fairies is infinitely less sappy and more interesting than we have ever dreamed and this is a quirky, often funny adventure fantasy.

But it is difficult to classify agewise. Maybe for 11+ to read to themselves, but most suited to a family read aloud for 8-ish to adult. For, as Gregory Maguire says in the foreword explaining the provenance of the book (partly after Hurricane Katrina), ‘the nutrition that stories provide is nearly as vital as shelter and clean water and food’.

Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Carlton