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Kit has just moved to Stoneygate with his family, to live with his ageing grandfather who is gradually succumbing to Alzheimer’s Disease. Stoneygate is an insular place, scarred by its mining history – by the danger and death it has brought them. Where the coal mine used to be there is now a wilderness.
Here Kit meets Askew, a surly and threatening figure who masterminds the game called Death, a frightening ritual of hypnotism; and Kit makes friends with Allie, the clever school troublemaker. As Kit struggles to adjust to his new life and the gradual failing of his beloved grandfather, these two friendships pull him towards a terrifying resolution. Haunted by ghosts of the past, Kit must confront death and – ultimately – life.
A stunning novel from the author of the modern children’s classic Skellig – winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.
Here Kit meets Askew, a surly and threatening figure who masterminds the game called Death, a frightening ritual of hypnotism; and Kit makes friends with Allie, the clever school troublemaker. As Kit struggles to adjust to his new life and the gradual failing of his beloved grandfather, these two friendships pull him towards a terrifying resolution. Haunted by ghosts of the past, Kit must confront death and – ultimately – life.
A stunning novel from the author of the modern children’s classic Skellig – winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.
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Reviews
A writer of subtle, page-turning and daring exactness.
Very touching.
The book treats all the great universal themes of literature - love, loss, redemption, mortality - with elegant, tender simplicity, and it is bound to touch any reader of whatever age.
This superb piece of lyrically-written literary fiction captivates teenagers and their parents alike.
Gripping, convincing and effortlessly well-written
Could a children's book win the Booker? The best writing is the kind that defies categories, and Almond's Kit's Wilderness makes the grade.
Dark and gripping.
Extremely good. Written with an acute sense of place plus a touch of the supernatural.
A moving rites-of-passage novel.
Magic of a very different kind
Almond's masterpiece: Kit's Wilderness is one of those rare works that changes how we see the world
Has the same mesmerising quality of writing and a hauntingly intense plot.
Sensitive and absorbing.
A children's book of stunning freshness and individuality.
An essential read from an original voice.
David Almond is a writer of subtle, page-turning and daring exactness, and he applies the same potent poetic and emphatic skills in his equally moving new novel.
Deeper and more unsettling than Almond's breakthrough book.
An enthralling, multi-layered and complex story with a tension that builds and grips the reader. A wonder ful read.
You can feel the chill from the ghosts that haunt its pages. An essential read from an original voice in children's books.
A haunting read for thoughtful readers.
Dark and gripping.
Almond's magic is subtle, breath-taking, redemptive.