Module 5: Skellig

Bibliography: Almond, D. (1998). Skellig. New York, NY: Delacorte Press.

Summary: Skellig tells the story of a young British boy named Michael.  Michael and his family move into a broken down old home where he discovers a strange creature that seems to be a hybrid of man and bird.  At the same time he has to cope with the fact that his baby sister, suffering from a heart defect, may die.  He soon after befriends a young girl named Mina who teaches him valuable lessons about nature, poetry, and how to cope with life’s cruelities.  Michael and Mina nurse the creature he found, whose name is Skellig, back to health from the broken wreck he had become.  Skellig returns the favor by helping Michael cope with his sister’s sickness.  In the end, Michael’s sister returns home as a healthy baby and the family rejoices in their good fortune.

Impressions:  I didn’t really connect with this book.  Perhaps that is due to the nature of the story.  Almond couldn’t seem to make up his mind if he wanted to write a realistic fiction or fantasy story and the quality of his work suffered as a result.  He also could have developed the character of Skellig a bit more.  Instead, readers get a shallow, bare-bones creature who is never given much of a personality.  Despite these flaws, Skellig is a decent example of the power of love and hope.

Reviews:

“Exploring a tumbling-down shed on the property his family has just bought, Michael finds Skellig, an ailing, mysterious being who is suffering from arthritis, but who still relishes Chinese food and brown ale. Michael also meets his neighbor Mina, a homeschooled girl. When she's not trying to open his eyes and ears to the world around him, she is spouting William Blake. As Michael begins nursing Skellig back to health, he realizes that there is something odd about his shoulders. Together, he and Mina move Skellig to a safe place, release the wings they find on his back from his jacket, and look after him until he eventually moves on. Throughout the story, readers share Michael's overriding concern for his infant sister, who is gravely ill. In the end, little Joy comes home from the hospital safe and happy and Michael's life has been greatly enriched by his experiences with her, Skellig, and Mina.” Patricia A. Dollisch, DeKalb County Public Library, Decatur, GA

Dollisch, P.A. (1999). Skelling Review. School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Skellig-Printz-Honor-David-Almond/dp/product-description/038532653X/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

 “A move to a new house coincides for Michael with the anguish of bearing his new baby sister's medical problems. Will she live? As the baby fights for her life in a hospital incubator, Michael learns, with the help of his new friend Mina, to look wider and harder at the world. If we are, as William Blake (Mina's favourite poet) tells us, surrounded by angels and spirits, then which is Skellig, the mysterious being Michael discovers in the ramshackle garage of his new home? An intensely written and fast moving fable, Skellig deals with the threat of loss out of which comes change as Michael begins to bear not knowing whether the baby will survive. Skellig (part-angel, part-invalid, part bird of prey) is both a loving figure providing protection, a shambolic figure requiring care and a cannibalistic creature feeding on the mice and fledglings provided by the owls who befriend him. This integration of a loving character with both vulnerable and unlovely aspects is unusual and touching. Just as the blackbirds and owls in the overgrown gardens that are the setting for much of the story nurture their young even while danger stalks, so Michael takes in his baby sister's very heartbeat and wills her, via Skellig, into life. An author of fiction for adults, this is Almond's first children's book. It is well and confidently paced despite a touch of bathos at the end. A considerable achievement.” – Rosemary Stones (Books for Keeps)

Stone, R. (1998). Skelling Review. Books for Keeps, No. 111. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2378/cgi-bin/member/search/f?./temp/~RZgGA1:2

Suggestions for Use in a Library:

This book contains a number of poem excerpts by William Blake.  Librarians can find other poems by this poet and read them to a group.  Children can then write their own poems and share them with others.