Once upon a Place

As a collection, Once Upon a Place engages with the deep significance landscape has in Irish stories, featuring tales and legends matched with eerie illustrations perfectly evoking the strangeness of these stories and of the places that have inspired them.

* Children's Books Ireland *

This book is a gift that could be given to any child of any age, the younger kids could be read to. But it’s also a gift we should buy for ourselves. Rarely does one find such a rainbow of outstanding talent in one little book, one truly exceptional anthology.

* The Sunday Independent *

Once Upon a Place is a significant publication, affording ample evidence of the high quality of the best of our current children’s literature. It is a pleasure to add that the quality of the content is matched in this instance by the extremely attractive standards of the book’s production values, including its design by Fidelma Slattery.

* The Irish Times *

The stories in the collection are certainly very varied; adventure stories, mysteries, stories of wonder are all included. All are linked by their referencing of Ireland which is evoked by descriptions of landscape, creatures, local magic and mischief and, most of all, weather! In John Connolly’s memorable and beautifully written The Bear, the magic lies in the imagination of a child who needs to see something that may not really be there. All readers will know more about Ireland when they have read the stories than they knew at the beginning but they would also see that stories such as these are universal.

-- Julia Eccleshare * The Guardi