The Explorer

Winner of the Costa Children's Book Award 2017.

From his seat in the tiny aeroplane, Fred watches as the mysteries of the Amazon jungle pass by below him. He has always dreamed of becoming an explorer, of making history and of reading his name amongst the lists of great discoveries. If only he could land and look about him.

As the plane crashes into the canopy, Fred is suddenly left without a choice. He and the three other children may be alive, but the jungle is a vast, untamed place. With no hope of rescue, the chance of getting home feels impossibly small.

Except, it seems, someone has been there before them .

Katherine Rundell spent her childhood in Africa and Europe. After completing a degree in English and a doctorate on John Donne, she is now a full-time writer and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she studies Renaissance literature and climbs old buildings at night. Katherine is the bestselling author of The Wolf Wilder and Rooftoppers, which won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award and was shortlisted for many others. In 2017 she was selected as one of Hay Festival's Hay30 influential young thinkers to watch.

Hannah Horn is a UK-based artist who specialises in illustration, paint and printmaking. Born in Aberdeen, Hannah studied fashion illustration at the London College of Fashion. In her career thus far she has produced work for a diverse range of projects including fashion, print, skateboarding brands and album artwork. The Explorer is her first children's fiction illustration project.