Skellig by David Almond: book review

Skellig by David Almond (1998) is a fantasy, mystery novella for young adults, set in England.

Ten-year-old Michael is stressed about the multiple changes in his life. He has a new baby sister, who is sickly, and his anxious parents have just moved into a creepy, delapidated, old house.

He feels helpless and, for long periods, he retreats to the garage to be away from the chaos indoors, and the impendng death of his ‘stupid’ baby sister.

He befriends a young girl called Mina, a strange combination of bird, angel, and child. She doesn’t go to school – her mother teachers Mina at home because ‘schools inhibit the natural curiosity, creativity, and intelligence of children.’

In the garage, Michael hears scratching. What is this strange near-death creature hidden behind the spider webs? Perhaps he is dreaming; perhaps this thing is imaginary. Eventually, Michael tells only Mina, and they carry the creature – a mysterious man called Skellig – outside and into the light.

This brief, easy-reading novella brings together images with imagination, darkness with light, stress with relief, and sibling annoyance with cautionary distance. Although not as intensely suspenseful as it could be, the novella is nevertheless a delightful page turner.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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