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.

Pelorus, "Notebook: 'The Stone Book'" (copyright © 1976 Aidan Chambers; reprinted by permission of the author and The Thimble Press, Lockwood Station Road, South Woodchester, Glos. GL5 5EQ, England), in Signal, No. 21, September, 1976, p. 148.