Expect a lot, and you won't be expecting too much, of The Stone Book by Alan Garner…. It is a miniature masterwork and, like all great miniatures, is staggering in what its limits contain….

[It] re-establishes the boundaries of what can be done in the pre-novel form, and it shows Garner to be totally in command of his art. The prose is assured, precisely right, without flaw; the story itself has an emotional poise that up till now has not been present in Garner's writing.