Part One: MorningTide

You're introduced to the novel Abarat, by Clive Barker, with an excerpt from the notes of an unknown monk, accompanied by a drawing of a strange character with birds sprouting from its fingers and head gear reminiscent of a totem pole. So, that was one of the things that attracted me to this book. I'm really enjoying that Barker has chosen to illustrate his story with paintings he did himself. For instance, the page before the first chapter is completely filled with painted chickens.

Like so.

The main character, Candy, has lived in the aptly named Chickentown her entire life. Apparently, literally everything in this town has to do with chickens, their livelihood and all their entertainment. 

Barker has a number of small illustration on a number of pages, but he also has paintings that show characters and places that he has described. The paintings are beautiful and they have helped me visualize his world because some of his descriptions have been a little confusing but the paintings have made his other characters easier to visualize as well.

I am also finding the world he created fascinating because the world is made entirely of islands. There are twenty-five islands in all, fifteen islands fall under the Islands of Day, nine fall under Islands of Night, and one lone island known as the 25th hour. Each island corresponds to an hour in the day. It's a brilliant idea, especially be each island is unique to that time of day and is stuck forever in that one hour, and all of the people and creatures and flora and everything else is made in the image of the island's specific hour. It's one of the coolest ideas I've ever encountered. Here's a map (also painted by Clive Barker) for fun and future reference!