The Casket Of Time (Yonder) - Hardcover

"The story confronts the concept of time and twists old fairy-tale memories with a passionate creativity."--The Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize

"The largest box of chocolate written in the Icelandic language that I have ever laid my hands on... This is confectionery for the mind! Wow! It is so good that I forgot to make notes ... This is a book for the 3 year old, the 30 year old, the 300 year old."--Audur Haraldsdóttir "Channel 2, National Radio "

"I have not previously seen the fairy tale genre so well tied up with a sci-fi story, a fantasy tale and a contemporary drama all at once. It really is elegant and full of surprises. I am therefore not at all surprised that the book has already won a few awards in Iceland. It would not surprise me if it also won the Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize."--Weekendavisen, Denmark

"Here we have a timeless fairy tale, and Magnason's depiction of this magical world is magnificently well realized."--Jon Bjarki Magnusson "DV Daily "

"The love child of Chomsky and Lewis Carroll."--Rebecca Solnit, author of Call Them by Their True Names

"A sparkling and entertaining adventure story in two time eras with a clear moral which, however, never turns into a sermon."--Frettabladid

"This is a book I would put on a shelf with The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland and The Little Prince. A children's story but it would be very good for adults to read it as well."
--Eric Lorberer of Rain Taxi Review--Rain Taxi Review

An entrancing adventure for today’s troubled planet, The Casket of Time is a fantastical tale of time travel and environmental calamity from celebrated Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason.

Teenage Sigrun is sick of all the apocalyptic news about the “situation” and, worse, her parents’ obsession with it. Sigrun’s family—along with everyone else—decides to hibernate in their TimeBoxes®, hoping for someone else to fix the world’s problems . But when Sigrun’s TimeBox® opens too early, she discovers an abandoned city overrun by wilderness and joins a band of kids who are helping a researcher named Grace solve the “situation.”

The world, according to Grace, is under an ancient curse. There once was a princess named Obsidiana, who was trapped in time by the greedy king of Pangea. To protect Obsidiana from dark and gloomy days, the king put her in a crystal casket made of spider silk woven so tightly that time itself couldn’t penetrate. The king’s greed for power doomed his kingdom and the trapped princess. Sigrun sees eerie parallels between the tale of Obsidiana and the present-day crisis, and realizes it’s up to her and her friends to break the ancient curse and fix the world.