Product Description

A long hot summer

A wild boy

An abandoned baby

An act of violence

Every summer Liam and Max roam the wild countryside of Northumberland – but this year things are different. One hot summer’s day a jackdaw leads the two boys into an ancient farm house where they find a baby, wrapped in a blanket, with a scribbled note pinned to it: PLESE LOOK AFTER HER RITE. THIS IS A CHILDE OF GOD.

And so begins Jackdaw Summer. A summer when friendships are tested. A summer when lines between good and bad are blurred. A summer that Liam will never forget ...

(20081206)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9674 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review

'a book of startling quality and tremendous beauty'

(The Bookbag )

'Another brilliant novel from a master storyteller.'

(Carousel )

Unsettling but, as ever, beautifully written.

(Daily Mail )

'... exceptional, delicate writing ... make a moving and thoughtful story told with exceptional elegance.'

(Julia Eccleshare )

'exquisite prose which sparkles off the page'

(Writeaway )

BACKLIST REVIEWS:
'Almond manages to make a work of art out of the simplest words.' (Amanda Craig, The Times )

'a master novelist' (Independent )

'There really is nobody quite like Almond writing in children's or adults' fiction today.' (The Times )

'a writer of subtle, page-turning and daring exactness.' (Times Educational Supplement )

'David Almond's novels all have a unique, mystical thread running through them. He weaves a story web, spiderlike, that holds the reader spellbound while he spins new though-threads on universal themes.' (Carousel )

'David Almond is a fine writer, one of the very finest we have. He is simply incapable of writing a bad sentence.' (Michael Morpurgo )

'One of these days, someone is going to notice that David Almond has been kidnapped by children's publishing and demand him back for adults. But until then, we must rejoice in every new offering of his.' (Sunday Telegraph )

"superb coming-of-age novel from one of our master story-tellers."

(Bookseller )

"This is a novel of power and beauty."

(The Daily Telegraph )

'Higgins writes in a dead-on emulation of a teenage girls voice, her prose salted with pithy observations.' 

(Financial Times )

About the Author
David Almond is twice winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award. His first novel, SKELLIG, won the Whitbread Children's Award and the Carnegie Medal. His second, KIT`S WILDERNESS, won the Smarties Award Silver Medal, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal, and shortlisted for the Guardian Award. THE FIRE-EATERS won the Whitbread, the Smarties Gold Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, and his most recent novel, CLAY, was shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award, and the Carnegie Medal. David is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and innovative children's authors writing today, and his books are bestsellers all over the world. He lives with his family in Northumberland. www.davidalmond.com

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Customer Reviews

Profoundly Beautiful
David Almond is one of the most distinctive writers of junior fiction in the UK and probably the world right now. His books are at once accessible and yet profound. They stir emotion, ask questions, introduce mysteries - and sometimes resolve them.

An over-riding theme is often conflict of one kind or another, and this is never more true than in this book. This book sees conflict between friends falling out, between people with different views, between governments and soldiers in Iraq and Liberia. All this in the back drop of beautiful Northumbria in a glorious summer.

But it is more than just conflict. Liam, the son of an artist mother and writer father, discovers an abandoned baby that he is led to by a Jackdaw. With the baby is a jar of money. this mystery sets in train other events which lead inexorably to the novel's conclusion.

David Almond will not be everyone's favourite author. He is an author to make you think "what was that book about"? And the answer is that it is about many things. But anyone who really enjoys reading should love what he does with language - so simply wrought and yet so profound - not one word out of place.

I enjoyed this book very much.