Skellig - Softcover

Almond, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340997044 ISBN 13: 9780340997048

Publisher: Hodder Children's Books, 2009

Synopsis

When a move to a new house coincides with his baby sister's illness, Michael's world seems suddenly lonely and uncertain.

Then, one Sunday afternoon, he stumbles into the old, ramshackle garage of his new home, and finds something magical. A strange creature - part owl, part angel, a being who needs Michael's help if he is to survive. With his new friend Mina, Michael nourishes Skellig back to health, while his baby sister languishes in the hospital.

But Skellig is far more than he at first appears, and as he helps Michael breathe life into his tiny sister, Michael's world changes forever . . .

Skellig won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book Award and is now a major Sky1 feature film, starring Tim Roth and John Simm. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.

About this title

Review:

Michael can feel his sick baby sister's heart beating inside him, and as long as he can feel it he knows she is alive. But as her condition becomes life-threatening and the family faces the nightmare of an operation to save her life, Michael turns to his new friend Mina and the strange being, Skellig, who has been living beneath the crumbling garage at the family's new home.

In this most delicate and tender story of a young boy living in fear of death and coming to terms with life, you can almost touch the indefinable magic that Skellig--part owl, part human, part everything and nothing--brings to Michael's unsettled world.

With the gentle touch of an angel's breath, Almond, in his first novel for children, lets his characters think, feel and believe without overwhelming sentimentality. A dream of a book to touch even the hardest of hearts. --Susan Harrison

Review:

Lyrical, innovative and unforgettably moving. (Sunday Express (Cressida Cowell))

Lyrical, innovative and moving...unforgettably moving (Cressida Cowell Sunday Express)

The book I wish I'd written is Skellig by David Almond. Almond's book has a great sense of the mysterious; we are left with a sense of wonder. I wish that I had written it! (Joseph Delaney Books For Keeps)

This modern classic has been reissued in a beautiful 15th anniversary edition (Lorna Bradbury The Sunday Telegraph)

An exquisitely crafted book with a mystical core (The Daily Telegraph)

The sort of children's book that makes adults find excuses to read more of them (Times Educational Supplement)

Hard to put down (Liz Lightfoot The Daily Telegraph)

Refusing to read this book on the grounds that you are not a child makes as much sense as refusing to read crime fiction because you are not a criminal. A deep and lovely book. (Nick Hornby The Times)

An exquisite book (The Sunday Telegraph)

Brings Magical Realism to working-class Northeast England (i (The Independent))

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0340997044
• ISBN 13: 9780340997048
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176