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 haunting read for thoughtful readers.
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.
An essential read from an original voice.
Dark and gripping.
Almond's masterpiece: Kit's Wilderness is one of those rare works that changes how we see the world
Dark and gripping.
You can feel the chill from the ghosts that haunt its pages. An essential read from an original voice in children's books.
A children's book of stunning freshness and individuality.
Extremely good. Written with an acute sense of place plus a touch of the supernatural.
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.
This superb piece of lyrically-written literary fiction captivates teenagers and their parents alike.
An enthralling, multi-layered and complex story with a tension that builds and grips the reader. A wonder ful read.
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.
Sensitive and absorbing.
Almond's magic is subtle, breath-taking, redemptive.
Has the same mesmerising quality of writing and a hauntingly intense plot.
Very touching.
A writer of subtle, page-turning and daring exactness.
A moving rites-of-passage novel.
Gripping, convincing and effortlessly well-written
Magic of a very different kind