Tyger
by SF Said; illus. by Dave McKean
Intermediate, Middle School    Penguin Workshop    304 pp.
7/25    9780593887240    $18.99
Paper ed.  9780593887257    $9.99
e-book ed.  9780593887264    $9.99

Said’s dystopian fantasy engages imagery and themes from the work of nineteenth-century poet and mystic William Blake. In an alternate London where the British Empire never declined and slavery was not abolished, Adam Alhambra and his family live in Soho, now a ghetto for “foreigners,” venturing out through checkpoints only to make deliveries for work. On a delivery run, Adam comes across a wounded tyger. Brilliant in her aura and in the “liquid golden fire” of her eyes, she is an immortal being from beyond the world. Adam learns that his own world is cruel because of Tyger’s evil enemy, Maldehyde (known also as Urizen, Blake’s embodiment of conventional reason). As the tyger guides Adam through the three gates of perception, imagination, and revelation, he acquires self-knowledge, vision, and wisdom, which allow him and a new friend to open a gateway to a “river of light echoing through time.” Tyger overcomes Maldehyde, and London’s wrongs are quickly righted. Although the prose can be repetitive (and even simplistic at times), the story’s strength lies in its evocation of Blake’s imagery and his ideas about imagination and creativity, which offer something for readers to ponder. McKean’s black-and-white illustrations, complex and dramatic, enhance and transform the text’s effectiveness: through vaguely realized shapes and stark contrasts, they allow both menace and luminous transcendence to take over the pages.

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.