Kevin Crossley Holland Books in Order

Driven from Denmark by a regent who wants him dead, young Havelok finds refuge in England. There he meets Goldborough, another dispossessed royal, and their forced marriage becomes the beginning of a struggle against two usurpers.

Eight stories revisit Anglo-Saxon life during an era of northern raids and competing religious beliefs. The collection follows a world where pagan traditions and Christianity struggle for recognition, bringing the tensions of early English history into narrative form.

After invaders conquer Suddenne and kill its king, Prince Horn and his companions are cast adrift. Reaching Westernesse, Horn grows into a knight, but love for Princess Rymenhild brings betrayal, exile, and a dangerous quest.

Jakke and his sister Keto are drawn to a chest of gold and silver said to lie beneath the Callow Pit. Recovering it requires following strange rules in a place surrounded by frightening medieval legends.

Two children with green skin appear near Woolpit, unable to explain themselves to the people who find them. This retelling of a medieval Suffolk legend follows strangers trying to make a home in an unfamiliar world.

A dream sends a pedlar from Swaffham to London in search of good fortune. His journey becomes a Norfolk folktale about following an unlikely promise and discovering how unexpectedly the search for treasure can unfold.

Wulf's new life among Christian monks brings him into conflict with his own family and the surrounding farmers. When a failed harvest renews hostility toward the monastery, his brother's anger tests Wulf's loyalties and beliefs.

On the Essex coast in seventh-century England, young Wulf encounters Cedd, a missionary bringing a new religion to the East Saxons. Plans to build a church among Roman ruins draw the boy toward an unfamiliar way of life.

In seventh-century England, the young Anglo-Saxon Wulf sets out toward the dying Bishop Cedd. This final story about Wulf follows a journey shaped by plague, monastic life, and the bond between a boy and his spiritual teacher.

A warrior crosses the sea to confront a monster that has terrorized another king's people. Crossley-Holland's illustrated retelling introduces Beowulf's battles with Grendel and his mother, bringing the Anglo-Saxon hero's dangerous adventures to younger readers.

Eleven retold folk stories draw on East Anglia and the Fen country’s traditions. Moving between frightening and humorous encounters, the collection brings regional lake lore and supernatural tales together in narratives shaped by the landscape and its remembered beliefs.

Medieval Welsh tales of Pwyll, Branwen, Manawydan, and Math are retold for modern readers in this illustrated collection. The stories introduce the legendary figures preserved in the Mabinogion, presenting an accessible encounter with narratives rooted in thirteenth-century manuscripts.

A fierce storm cuts off Annie's remote Norfolk home just as her sister goes into labor. Sent to fetch the doctor, Annie must venture into the darkness, where a mysterious horseman offers an unsettling way forward.

Eleven animal tales from the Brothers Grimm bring together creatures caught in contests of cunning, appetite, and survival. The collection includes stories such as The Wolf and the Seven Kids and The Hare and the Hedgehog.

This anthology gathers poetry about British travelers abroad, from pilgrims and explorers to soldiers, missionaries, traders, and tourists. Poems by writers including Marvell, Coleridge, Shelley, and Rossetti trace varied encounters with places beyond home.

Culhwch is cursed to marry only Olwen, a giant's daughter whose father sets seemingly impossible conditions. With help from his cousin King Arthur, his knights, and ancient animals, Culhwch begins the quest to win her hand.

A young girl's dream becomes a voyage through islands associated with the five senses. This illustrated story turns sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch into the setting for an imaginative journey through a sleeping child's world.

Andrew Rafferty's photographs and Kevin Crossley-Holland's accompanying text explore Britain's megalithic sites. This illustrated volume brings together ancient monuments and the landscapes around them, focusing on the surviving traces of the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

Ten gardens provide the setting for a counting adventure told in verse. A boy collects objects as readers search the illustrations for clues, plants, animals, and the items that make up each new number.

Fifteen stories drawn from East Anglia and the Fen Country bring together frightening and humorous strands of regional folklore. Crossley-Holland retells the tales in an illustrated collection that includes the story of the dead hand.

Ceridwen prepares a magical brew intended to give her son wisdom, but young Gwion unexpectedly gains its power. A chase through changing shapes begins this Welsh legend about the origins of the poet Taliesin.

This illustrated collection retells Viking myths in prose, introducing readers to the legendary world preserved in Norse storytelling. Its tales bring ancient figures and events into accessible narratives, offering an introduction to the traditions behind these enduring northern stories.

These poems explore childhood, love, fatherhood and aging through encounters with places, music and language. Journeys from Minneapolis to Crete accompany reflections on ancient cultures and everyday experience, tracing an affirmative response to the world.

Arthurian stories and medieval history meet in this illustrated introduction to King Arthur's world. Accounts of Merlin, Morgan, and the Round Table sit alongside explanations of castles, knighthood, courtly love, and the society surrounding the legends.

New poems join selections from earlier collections in this exploration of East Anglia. Crossley-Holland follows families, communities and changing landscapes through villages and marshes, connecting the region’s present life with its remembered people and history.

Ghosts, animals and unexpected adventures fill this collection of very short stories, each no longer than two pages. Familiar tales appear alongside new inventions, moving between frightening encounters and comic surprises in settings that include everyday supermarkets.

This illustrated guide explores King Arthur's legends alongside the historical world that helped shape them. Readers meet familiar characters while learning about medieval castles, tournaments, armor, clothing, and the customs behind tales of chivalry.

One hundred new riddles by contemporary English poets take inspiration from the medieval Exeter Book. Ancient and modern objects become puzzles to solve, connecting an Anglo-Saxon literary tradition with the language and concerns of later writers.

King Arthur, his companions, and their adventures form the center of this illustrated survey of Arthurian lore. It explores the people and places of the legends while considering their literary development and possible historical background.

Thirty-five folktales from five continents bring together ghosts, robbers, princesses and magical encounters. Crossley-Holland retells familiar stories such as Ali Baba and the Pied Piper alongside less familiar traditions, including tales from Africa and Asia.

Ten traditional tales from across Europe introduce enchanted encounters, legendary heroes and perilous bargains. Stories from England, Iceland, Greece and Denmark include the Pied Piper, King Arthur and Godfather Death, retold for younger readers.

In the Welsh Marches in 1199, young Arthur de Caldicot receives a shining stone that reveals the life of King Arthur. The legendary king's experiences begin to echo the boy's own discoveries about his medieval household.

Arthur de Caldicot becomes Lord Stephen's squire and prepares to accompany him on crusade. As he acquires a horse, armor, and fighting skills, his seeing stone reveals stories of King Arthur and the Round Table.

Selections from seven earlier collections appear alongside new poems in this survey of Crossley-Holland’s work. Relationships between fathers and children, the landscapes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and experiences of continuity and displacement connect its varied voices.

Folktales handed down through generations in Britain and Ireland are gathered in Crossley-Holland's retellings. Previously published as British Folk Tales, this collection presents traditional stories as a shared inheritance of the islands' storytelling cultures.

Rejected by the animals around him, a young duckling searches for somewhere to belong as the seasons change. Crossley-Holland retells Hans Christian Andersen's story in a picture book illustrated with Meilo So's farmyard creatures and landscapes.

Arthur de Caldicot approaches knighthood as the Fourth Crusade gathers in Venice. Romance, politics, and the growing disorder of the expedition challenge his expectations of war, while his seeing stone continues to reveal his legendary namesake's world.

The Nativity unfolds through the voices of people, animals, angels, and a star. Short first-person passages and Peter Malone's illustrations offer different perspectives on the journey to Bethlehem and the events surrounding the birth of Jesus.

In 1203, fifteen-year-old field worker Gatty joins Lady Gwyneth's pilgrimage from the Welsh Marches to Jerusalem. Traveling with a small company, she encounters unfamiliar places and dangers that test her courage and change her understanding of herself.

Gatty leaves her life as a field worker to travel with eight other pilgrims toward Jerusalem. Beginning in the Welsh Marches in 1203, their journey brings wonders and hazards that open the young girl's world.

A mysterious figure inhabits the marshes of north Norfolk, shaping waterways and moving between playful and threatening acts. This sequence of poems follows his shifting identity while exploring the landscape and the human relationships around it.

Six tales follow outsiders entering isolated communities along the coast and inland. An unwanted child, an outlaw girl, and a strange figure from the sea expose the suspicions and questions of belonging that unfamiliar people can provoke.

In 1950s Norfolk, Annie and Sandy find a carved wing that may belong to angels once removed from their church. An inscription draws them into a search for the missing carvings, while other seekers pose a threat.

Crossley-Holland recalls a childhood shaped by wartime, the Chiltern woods, Norfolk holidays, cricket, and Arthurian stories. Memories of family relationships and their fractures accompany the experiences that helped form his imagination as a boy.

When her father breaks his promise and leaves to serve Harald Hardrada in Constantinople, Solveig follows him. Traveling by boat through a dangerous Viking world, she must face unfamiliar people and perilous waters to find him.

This collection offers another set of very short stories, some told in only a few words. Ghosts, strange happenings and unexpected encounters move between humor and fear, inviting readers into tales that reach their surprises quickly.

New poems accompany selections from eight earlier collections in this exploration of youth, aging, love and friendship. Norfolk’s layered landscapes frame reflections on the body, the spirit and the experience of finding meaning through language.

Fifteen-year-old Solveig hides among Viking mercenaries serving Harald Hardrada and Empress Zoe. As conflict exposes the brutality of their world, she faces difficult choices between loyalty to her father and her own sense of right and wrong.

A poor woman's daughter becomes queen on condition that she spin five sacks of wool each day for a month every year. A mysterious visitor offers help in this retelling of the bargain at the heart of Rumpelstiltskin.

Thor sets out to challenge the giants, accompanied by the trickster Loki. Inside the Giant King's fortress, his hammer and extraordinary strength face magical trials that call into question whether brute force can defeat the Master of Magic.

Laura has never spoken since being abandoned at a Venetian orphanage as a baby. When composer Antonio Vivaldi recognizes her musical gift, his guidance transforms her life in this illustrated story about finding expression and connection through music.

Encounters with family, historical figures and imagined presences shape these poems about memory, loss and affirmation. Crossley-Holland moves between north Norfolk and the Alps, drawing together personal experience, old stories and the enduring consequences of war.

Anouk, Ben and Cara dream of reaching an island treasure across the harbor. A mysterious boatman offers passage on one condition: they must solve seven riddles, facing increasingly difficult questions among passengers drawn from familiar stories.

These retellings trace Norse mythology from the creation of the world to Ragnarok. Odin, Thor and Loki encounter giants, monsters and competing powers, while stories of Asgard, stolen treasures and dangerous bargains reveal the gods’ troubled relationships.

Eleven tales from the Brothers Grimm place animals at the center of magical adventures and everyday struggles. Crossley-Holland’s translations include the Bremen Town Musicians and the Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, accompanied by Susan Varley’s illustrations.

Five Norse tales follow gods and humans across a world inhabited by giants, dwarfs, trolls and ghosts. Adventures beyond the rainbow bridge bring encounters with unfamiliar powers, with Jeffrey Alan Love’s illustrations accompanying Crossley-Holland’s retellings.

Kevin Crossley-Holland retells the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, tracing the world of Camelot and its heroes. Chris Riddell's illustrations accompany stories of chivalry, adventure and the bonds that shape Arthur's kingdom.

These poems return to Norfolk’s landscapes while attending to ordinary language, earthly experience and spiritual questions. Crossley-Holland’s twelfth collection gathers work from six years, following connections between the physical world and the mysteries it suggests.

This poetry sequence speaks in the voice of Harald Hardrada during his formative years in Byzantium. Crossley-Holland imagines the warrior's experiences as a member of the Varangian Guard, exploring ambition and identity within the world of the empire.

As Viking forces approach York, Tor, the son of Harald Hardrada, encounters the Anglo-Saxon girl Kata while serving as an advance scout. Their growing attachment tests loyalties to family and homeland on the eve of battle.