A prequel to the bestselling Merlin Saga starring Shim, a young giant who must embark on a dangerous adventure when he's shrunk to the height of a man's knee. * “An excellent jumping-in point for new readers as well as pleasurable reading for established fans…Simply delightful.” — Kirkus Reviews , starred review Read it before you see it! The Merlin Saga is soon to be a major motion picture! Shim has only ever known a world of peace. Unusually big and strong even for a young giant, he lives on the magical isle of Fincayra, immersed in nature as well as tales of wizards, merfolk, and dragons. Suddenly that world explodes in chaos. A terrible attack forces Shim and his mother to flee—and take a hazardous journey to reach the only person who could possibly help them, the mysterious Domnu. But when a wager goes horribly wrong, Shim shrinks down to a tiny fraction of his size. Now only as tall as a man’s knee, he finds himself lost in a deadly swamp. Worse yet, he has forgotten something important, something truly essential. But what? As small as he is now, Shim must find giant-size courage. He embarks on a perilous quest to discover what happened, what secret he forgot, and what it really means to be a giant. Combining his trademark passion, adventure, and spiritual depth, T. A. Barron tells the origin story of this beloved character from his highly acclaimed, international bestselling series, The Merlin Saga. As the prequel to the Saga, this story is as big as a giant... and as magical as Merlin. *“An excellent jumping-in point for new readers as well as pleasurable reading for established fans…Simply delightful.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Middle-grade readers will delight in the danger, emotional depth, and escapismthat accompanies this magical world."— Booklist T.A. Barron is the award-winning author of fantasy novels such as The Merlin Saga epic--soon to be a major motion picture. He serves on a variety of environmental and educational boards including the Nature Conservancy and the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, and is the founder of a national award for heroic children. Following a life-changing decision to leave a successful business career to write full-time in 1990, Barron has written seventeen books, but is happiest when on the mountain trails with his wife, Currie, and their five children. "Seventeen boulders!” giant, she strained to lift the squirming baby in her hands. “That’s a hefty weight for a newlyborn, even for a giant.” Turning slowly in the sunlight, Gargolyn observed the baby closely, from his pudgy nose down to his unusually large feet. True to the giants’ ancient traditions, the baby’s mother, Vonya, had chosen to give birth outdoors. It had been a long pregnancy, lasting thirteen months—but here they were at last, in the roofless, open-air Birthing Pavilion. Set in the middle of a garden and walled by hedges, the Pavilion was encircled by crowed the midwife Gargolyn. Though she herself was a columns that had been carved centuries before from a hillside of silver quartz, the sparkling white rock that Fincayrans called giantstone. Those majestic columns reached skyward to the height of medium-size spruce trees—which is to say they reached only up to the elbows of most fully grown giants. On each column were carvings of paired faces—one belonging to a famous giant, about whom bards had sung songs and told stories for ages, and the other belonging to that giant’s mother . . . who had, in most cases, given birth right here at this very place. “Hefty weight indeed,” Vonya declared, a proud smile on her face. Carefully, she raised her enormous bulk higher on the mattress stuffed with willow boughs and rushes. “Now give him back to his mother, you hear? Before you drop that weight on your toes.” Wrinkling her leathery brow, the midwife scowled. Even as she trembled with the weight, she grumbled, “I’ve held hundreds of babies in my time, and never dropped a single one.” Vonya reached her arms, as thick and sturdy as tree trunks, toward her baby. “I’m sure that’s true . . . but not many of them weighed as much as half a mountain.” “Right.” Gargolyn’s scowl melted into a grin. “In fact, none of them was as big at birth as this one.” As she passed the baby over to Vonya, she added, “Half his weight, I daresay, is from these plumpish feet. Just look at the size of them!” As if on cue, the baby kicked wildly, almost smacking the midwife’s nose. “At least half.” Vonya chuckled as she took the baby and folded her strong arms around him. “I’m tempted to call him Big Feet . . . until he earns his true name.” “No, too irreverent,” said the old midwife, shaking her ropes of gray hair. “A young giant deserves a nickname that’s more, well, respectable . Something befitting a member of Fincayra’s oldest race—the island’s first people, the ones our great spirit Dagda carved out of the holy mountain.” “I know, I know,” Vonya replied. “But sometimes the o