Celandine is a children's fantasy novel by Steve Augarde. It is the second book in the Touchstone Trilogy and was first published in 2006. Celandine is set ninety years before The Various, the first book of the trilogy. It follows the adventures of Celandine (born 1901) in the years 1914âÂÂ1915, at the onset of World War I. Having run away from her detested boarding school, Celandine is too afraid to go home in case she is sent back. As she seeks shelter in the Wild Wood near her home, little does she think she will encounter a world where loyalty and independence is fiercely guarded, and where danger lurks in the most unlikely of places. Celandine's troubled character finds both refuge and among the secret tribes of little people that she alone believes in.
Celandine is running away from the boarding school she was sent to by her parents to âÂÂpound all of the nonsense out of herâÂÂ. It is her third escape attempt, after being sent back twice by her parents. She boards a train and meets a crippled soldier who appears to be no older than her brother Freddie, who died as a volunteer soldier. She also meets a nurse who upon Celandine's departure from their company exclaims âÂÂDo you know that extraordinary looking girl?âÂÂ
She returns to her home farm but does not wish to enter an angry confrontation with her father. Instead, she climbs the hill and signals a small child Celandine calls Fin to appear out of nowhere. Celandine was 10 when she first saw the âÂÂlittle peopleâÂÂ, the first of whom was Fin and his guardian. When Celandine told others what she saw, no one but Freddie believed her.
Celandine is named after a flowering medicinal herb. It may either be Greater celandine of the poppy family, or Lesser celandine, a buttercup. The plant figures in all three volumes of the trilogy, but it is not clear from the descriptions which of the two Steve Augarde has in mind.