A Monster Calls
by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay
From an idea by Siobhan Dowd
Interest age: 11 to 14
Reading age: 10+
Published by Walker Books, 2011
About this book
Connor's mum has cancer and life is irrevocably, disturbingly changing. First there is the nightmare, filled with screaming and falling; then there is school, where people avoid him (not knowing what to say), or persecute him.
There is his enforced, combative intimacy with his distant, spiky gran. And then there is the Monster, immense, tree-like, mythic.
He comes at night, makes Connor listen to un-story-like stories, pushes him to the edge of what is bearable - because 'you know that your truth, the one that you hide, Connor O'Malley, is the thing you are most afraid of'.
Visceral, dark, sad, beautiful, hopeful and really, really angry, this is a beautifully structured, dense, layered novel about the monster that touches us all at some point. This extraordinary book was the first ever to win both the CILIP Carnegie and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medals.
About the author
More books like this
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One Crow Alone
12+ years
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Bog Child
by Siobhan Dowd
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The Ask and the Answer
by Patrick Ness
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The Knife of Never Letting Go
by Patrick Ness
12+ years
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