Staff review - Clockwork, or all wound up, by Philip Pullman

This is a short but intricate story set in Germany in the olden days. It is a fairytale about clocks, but also about storytelling itself. The book becomes more complicated when you are not sure which parts of it are real and which parts are a story being told to the characters! There is also mystery involved when some of the characters act mechanically, as if they are running on clockwork. And sometimes the mechanical models which really are made of clockwork seem to be quite real. This book is interesting because it considers what it means to act mechanically, and what it means to be a human being. It also challenges our ideas about what makes a story, and how we can tell it apart from reality.

When you finish it, you'll want to go back to the start and read it again just to be sure!

Emily @Hawthorn

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