David Almond

Sono ancora molto perplessa riguardo a questo romanzo. Mi è piaciuto il suo soffermarsi sull'amicizia, sulla diversità, sulla malattia e il suo aggiungere un pizzico di magia alla quotidianità.

Non mi è piaciuto per niente, invece, l'insinuare che la discendenza dell'uomo dalla scimmia sia qualcosa di disonorevole. Perché dovrebbe esserlo? Perché discendere (ipoteticamente) dagli angeli dovrebbe essere meglio? Perché forse sono più carini?

Be', le scimmie non saranno esteriormente gradevoli come gli angeli, ma gli esseri umani sono il prodotto più alto del processo di evoluzione sulla Terra. Questo non vuol dire che siano perfetti (come lo sono gli angeli): anzi, siamo altamente imperfetti (per fortuna, aggiungerebbe Rita Levi-Montalcini, e sono d'accordo con lei). Quindi, per favore, niente scapole che sarebbero ali di angeli atrofizzate. Sto facendo la stronza e uccidendo tutta la poesia? Bah, non c'è poesia qui, solo illusione.… (lisätietoja)

READING LEVEL: 3.7 AR POINTS: 6.0
(Ages 12 , grades 7-9)
Michael L. Printz Award

This story is a little too dark for me and deals with some pretty heavy stuff, not at all what I expected it to be about and is probably not one I’m going to give to one of my 10 grandies.

It starts off with a small group of 13-year-olds playing a game called “Death” in an old, dark and wet mining pit. It’s not okay for kids to play with death, or conjuring up angels or demons or ghosts. This could surely open up a doorway for other evils to enter into their lives if they were to play these types of games. Even the adults in the story, once the kids were caught playing this game, deemed it too dangerous. They had the town close up the opening of the pit and reported them to their parents and expelled the leader...John Askew.

I felt this part could have been left out or even dealt with in some other way in the story. Otherwise, this was a pretty good story showing sacrifice and love for family, alcoholism and abuse, and friendship.

Kit Watson and his family returned home to Stoneygate, an old coal-mining town in England, to help take care of his grandfather, who had Alzheimer’s. The Watson’s, along with a few others still living in Stoneygate, including the dark and sinister 13-year-old John Askew, had deep roots to this town and its mining history.

Back in 1821, there had been a mining accident that killed 117 people. Most were children, from ages 9-15. Among those killed were Kit Watson’s 13-year-old uncle, his namesake, Christopher Watson, and also John Askew’s grandfather, his namesake, John Askew, was killed. Death seemed to draw the two boys together.

John Askew was being drawn deeper and deeper into the dark side because of his alcoholic father who beat him and tore him down mentally, and he spent most of his time in his drawings or in his cult-like practices in the mining pits.

After the disappearance of John, and the town believing he may actually be dead somewhere, Kit found John dealing with his greatest struggle at the end, hidden deep inside one of the mining pits, deciding if he should kill himself or his father. Kit offered his truest and greatest friendship and stayed with John the whole night. Kit began to tell his story, which turned out to be spiritually connected to John’s ancestor. As Kit was telling the story, they both saw visions of the story coming alive. The only way Kit knew for sure that the dreams weren’t just dreams was because Kit woke up in the morning with colorful pebbles left in his hand as a thank you from John’s ancestor. Those were real.

Kit's story, along with John's art illustrations, were perfectly captured together by their visions that night and hung in the halls of the school. This was the start of a true and lasting friendship.… (lisätietoja)

READING LEVEL: 3.5 AR POINTS: 4.0
(Ages 9-12, grades 4-7)

This was a very strange story that I didn’t quite understand. I found it another dark story by David Almond and don't believe I'm quite a fan of his writing.

Skellig is the man Michael found sitting in the corner of their garage and covered in cobwebs, bluebottles and dust. He was part man, part owl and part angel, but what kind of angel? He had dark matted hair and wearing black clothes. His skin was white, dry and cracked. His eyes were dark but gentle. He had wings, but he appeared to be dying and was riddled with arthritis. He was cocky and talked kind of mean with total hopelessness.

Michael and his friend fed him what the creature considered the “food of the gods”...Chinese food and beer. Otherwise, he had been living off of spiders and creepy crawlies in the garage. This doesn’t actually sound like a “heavenly” being, hence the confusion about where this story was really going.

Michael and his friend, Mina, seem to both have some kind of spiritual intuitive abilities and befriend this creature. They even love this creature. They help, along with a couple of owls, to nurture him back to health. Before the creature left, to who knows where, he joins them in a circle and looking deep into their eyes, they seem to go into some kind of trance and float and Michael and Mina grow wings temporarily. Once they return to the ground, their wings are gone. I never understood the meaning of this.

This dark creature later goes to the hospital where Michael’s baby sister is about to have heart surgery. He picks her up and she smiles into her eyes and she smiles back, then suddenly has baby wings. He then puts her back into her bed. Michael’s mother witnessed the whole thing but thought she was dreaming.

So, he’s a nice angel but a dark looking angel. I still don’t know the meaning of this man-creature. Is he a fallen angel? Is the angel of death? What is he exactly that even the owls feed him to keep him alive? And what was the purpose of giving them wings for a moment?

I better stick to real stories from now on cause I obviously don't have a very good imagination...lol… (lisätietoja)