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The Colour of the Sun

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This is a moving, funny and inspirational novel from the bestselling author of Skellig. *Shortlisted for the 2018 Costa Book Awards.*

“The day is long, the world is wide, you’re young and free.”

One hot summer morning, Davie steps boldly out of his front door. The world he enters is very familiar – the little Tyneside town that has always been his home – but as the day passes, it becomes ever more mysterious.

A boy has been killed, and Davie thinks he might know who is responsible. He turns away from the gossip and excitement and sets off roaming towards the sunlit hills above the town.

As the day goes on, the real and the imaginary start to merge, and Davie knows that neither he nor his world will ever be the same again.

This an outstanding novel full of warmth and light, from a multi-award-winning author. David Almond says: ‘I guess it embodies my constant astonishment at being alive in this beautiful, weird, extraordinary world.’

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Reviews

Beautiful, dream-like story about a boy, a crime, a feud, and growing up in a small town. It's warm and loving and manages to be both intimate and expansive. A beautiful, beautiful read.
The Bookbag
Finally, the pure joy and exhilaration of being young and alive on a perfect summer's day is captured to stunning effect in David Almond's The Colour of the Sun (Hodder £12.99)...Lyrical and unforgettable, it's Almond's most autobiographical novel to date and possibly his most beautiful.
Fiona Noble, The Observer
This book yearns with nostalgia for the cusp between boyhood and manhood...It is lyrical, transcendental and shot through with dialect voices. SUNDAY TIMES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times
The book explores liminal spaces: the edgelands between child and adult, being and seeming, life and death and the human and natural worlds.
The Guardian
brilliantly suspenseful until the end...He [David Almond] is that rare thing - a writer of lucid, mature elegance, who can still see the world through adolescent eyes.
Emily Bearn, The Daily Telegraph
David Almond at his finest...this is a lyrical and moving story about a boy on the cusp of manhood...There is a touching innocence to this book and a warmth that glows from every page.
Beth Goodyear, The Scotsman
The Colour of the Sun is really, really something.
Woman's Way
Creating some of the finest work of his career is David Almond in The Colour of the Sun (Hodder), a semi-autobiographical novel that showcases his transcendent, otherworldly storytelling. Over the course of a single summer's day, protagonist Davie's journey through his home town and into the sunlit hills shows us life, death and the wonder of the everyday.
The Guardian