The Real Boy

Cover for The Real Boy
This lush fantasy story stars an autistic protagonist whose portrayal is immersive and utterly believable.

The Real Boy

The Real Boy, Anne Ursu’s follow-up to her widely acclaimed and beloved middle grade fantasy Breadcrumbs, is a spellbinding tale of the power we all wield, great and small.

On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy named Oscar. Oscar is a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the village, and spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master’s shop grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar’s world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.

But now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the forest will keep his island safe. Now even magic may not be enough to save it.

Practical information

Author: Anne Ursu
Publisher: HarperCollins (Walden Pond Press)
Publication year: 2013
ISBN: 9780062015075
Age category: middle grade
Disability portrayed: autism
Genre: fantasy

Accessible formats


audiobook available

Author

Anne Ursu

Anne Ursu is the author of several books for young readers and is the 2013 recipient of the McKnight Fellowship in Children’s Literature. Anne’s latest book, The Real Boy, is an Indie Next pick and on the 2013 longlist for the National Book Award. She is also the author of Breadcrumbs, which was acclaimed as one of the best books of 2011 by the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com, and the Chicago Public Library. It was also on the IndieBound Next List and was featured on NPR’s Backseat Book Club. Anne is also the author of the three books that comprise The Cronus Chronicles: The Shadow Thieves, The Siren Song, and The Immortal Fire. Anne teaches at Hamline University's MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and lives in Minneapolis with her son and three cats.

I was very anxious about the reaction from readers with autism — I very much didn’t want to mess this up. And so hearing from autistic people that they connected with Oscar has been wonderful. I’ve been very happy to hear from people whose kids have seen themselves in Oscar, or whose neurotypical children saw a sibling or a friend in him. And I’m happy that neurotypical kids connect with him too — autistic or not, lots of people know what it’s like not to feel like you fit in, like you don’t work quite like other people.
(Disability in Kidlit, April 2015)

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