While David Almond has penned many works since his children's book debut of Skellig, we read and highlighted nine of his works. Some of them are shown above in the order of publication. Below is a synopsis, key ideas, and an Amazon page link for each novel, whose audience - generally speaking - is upper-elementary students.
MY DAD'S A BIRDMAN
When Lizzie notices her father's odd behavior - chirping like a bird, eating insects, and hiding homemade wings in the closet - she skips school and supports him in his wish to enter the Great Human-Bird Competition. Mr. Poop, the event's organizer and host, announces sign-ups for the flying competition. Both Lizzie and her father, Jackie, enter. Together, they craft homemade wings and beaks. They even build a gigantic nest in the living room. However, Aunt Doreen shows up, observes the odd behavior of her niece and brother, and sets out to make them conform to a "normal" daily routine. She enlists Lizzie to help prepare and cook her famous dumplings, but Lizzie soon wanders off to rejoin in the bird festivities. Still appalled and determined to stop the two's bizarre behavior, Aunt Doreen fetches Mr. Mint, Lizzie's schoolteacher to talk some sense into his student. However, Lizzie and Jackie inspire Mr. Mint, and its not long before all three report to the Great Human-Bird Competition. After retrieving Aunt Doreen to watch just before they jump from the diving board over the water, Jackie and Lizzie leap into the air. Reminiscent of the Greek myth of Icarus, the story is undeniably optimistic and contemplates what it means to support someone when it is difficult to do so.
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Key Ideas: The power of hope and optimism, solidarity, coping with grief and loss, individuality v. conformity, the desire to fly.
THE BOY WHO CLIMBED INTO
THE MOON Living in the basement of his 29-story apartment complex, Paul skips school to venture to the roof and "touch the sky," a small dream that soon snowballs into a grand adventure to climb into the moon and determine whether or not the moon is actually just a hole in the sky. As Paul climbs the stairs, he meets Mabel/Molly, the seemingly confused landlord in the middle of an identity crisis. Serving sausages and ketchup to Paul and his parents, Mabel/Molly claims to be the twin sister of the Mabel and shows the family all of her sister's painting - which are all portraits of the apartment's tenants! Then she prompts Paul to look through a telescope to her brother, Benjamin, working in his garden. Envisioning a curly-haired man cutting wood, Paul sees him, but after they whip up and down streets in the father's cab going to the brother's house, the new friends find a different sight: a traumatized war veteran with long, straight hair, a sack over his head, and his own made-up language. Snapping Benjamin out of his depression by coming up with an out-of-the-blue his moon hypothesis, Paul sets out to get a ladder up to the roof of the apartment building. With his theory proved correct, Paul hops down into the moon to find a world full of lost airplanes, astronauts, birds, and even a girl who famously shot from a cannon ball!
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Key Ideas: The power of imagination, adventure, testing hypotheses, identity, the effects of war, friendship, solitary v. solidarity.
SLOG'S DAD
When Davie emerges from Myers’ sandwich shop, Slog points at
a man sitting on a park bench, convinced it is the angelic return of his
deceased father. Garbage man Joe Mickley suffered blackened legs and
amputations, but, on his deathbed, he promised Slog that he would visit in the
spring. The two friends approach the mysterious man, and Slog immediately
collapses at his legs, touching them and blabbering on about heavenly
restoration and transfiguration. Seemingly unfazed by the commotion and sudden
attention, the man confiscates Davie’s sandwich. Skeptical, Davie questions the
man about Slog’s father, but the man is able to relay the personal information.
In vernacular language, the two kids’ simple conversation with the man yields
no conclusive identity. But to
supplement the dialogue and to perhaps show the intense need for Slog to
believe that the man is his father, two-page illustrations depict Slog’s
heartbreaking grieving processes: a balloon scarecrow, a nighttime tear, a
dream of being reunited on a rooftop, and a paper doll whose legs have been chopped
to pieces with a scissor.
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Key Ideas: Coping with grief and loss, promises and wish fulfillment, heaven on earth, doubt/skepticism v. blind faith.
MOUSE BIRD SNAKE WOLF
As characters in a creation myth, three unsupervised children experiment with imagination to fill in the empty spaces of an unfinished universe and discover their life-giving vocal powers. Sleeping and gorging on tea and cake in the clouds, the gods are too lazy and too conceited to notice the mischief. First, Ben imagines a mouse, constructs the animal from branches and leaves, screams at the lifeless pile, and watches it scamper away. Sue follows his lead and crafts a bird from stones and leaves. Lastly, Harry calls forth a snake from his elongated dirt pile. The children then join forces and collaboratively design an animal, building a massive twig-and-leaf wolf. Ben foresees the danger in summoning the bold vision to life and climbs to safety in a tree. However, Sue and Harry wriggle their arms and chant around the wooden beast. The wolf awakens and immediately gobbles up the two children. Desperately attempting to reverse their life-giving song and dance, Ben shouts at the clawed monster and hopes to save his friends by recalling the evil they introduced into the world and transforming it back into twigs and leaves.
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Key Ideas: Creationism, creativity and imagination, supervision v. freedom, origins of evil, the limits of harmless fun.
SKELLIG
After moving into a new house with his parents and newborn sister, Michael explores the dilapidated garage and discovers a winged man in the corner. Arthritic, weak, and crotchety, Skellig asks for aspirin, brown ale, and Chinese food, specifically numbers 27 and 53 (spring rolls and pork char sui). Kicking around a football in his yard, Michael befriends Mina, a bright and creative girl who lives in the neighborhood. Homeschooled by her mother, Mina criticizes the fill-in-the-blank science worksheets that Michael brings home from school and talks about William Blake and Greek mythology. Her lessons include drawing in a tree, observing a blackbird nest, and creating clay sculptures. Taking her to Skellig, Michael and Mina bond over the winged man, transporting him to a safer location, the owl-infested attic that Mina will eventually inherit from her grandfather. But with home doctor visits and hospital runs, the baby sister’s heart condition looms in the background of Michael and Mina’s adventures. However, as Skellig strengthens in the attic and is able to spin the two floating children in the air as they sprout luminous wings from their shoulder blades, his presence in Michael and Mina’s life seems related to the life – and impending death – of the baby sister.
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Key Ideas: The healing power of hope and love, friendship, public schooling v. homeschooling, birds, human interconnectedness.
MY NAME IS MINA
To cope with the death of her father and her feelings as she drifts between public schooling and alternative education, Mina starts writing in a journal, which is the book's unique format. Mina's enthusiastic, imaginative, and assertively individual voice shines through in the first-person narration, but it is starkly contrasted with her sporadic third-person writing that allows her to talk about her hard experiences - and also allows her to distance herself from her difficult experiences. Venturing into an abandoned construction site to find her deceased father and seeing him outside her window at school, Mina struggles with the loss throughout the book. Additionally, her teacher suggests alternative schooling when Mina writing nonsense words on the high-stakes standardized test, so her world is thrown into flux even more. Even with Mina's ramblings on fig rolls, mythology, and science all energetic and strong, her friend's suggestion that she needs a "destrangification" operation taps into Mina's low self-confidence as she wonders about whether the new neighborhood - Michael - would want to be friends "with someone like her." My Name is MIna is the prequel to David Almond's 1998 breakout children's novel, Skellig.
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Key Ideas: Individuality, alternative education v. public schooling v. homeschooling, coping with grief and loss, enthusiasm and imagination.
THE BOY WHO SWAM WITH PIRANHAS
When Uncle Ernie ruins Stanley Potts's birthday with his unrelenting workaholic attitude toward his fish-canning business, he runs away with his goldfish and the traveling circus's Hook-a-Duck stall owners, Dostoyevsky and his daughter, Nitasha. Meeting the other eccentric carnival characters, Stan stumbles into Gypsy Rose - who tells him about the moonlight's ability to make people "mad" - sad Tickle Peter - who reminds him of the importance of laughter - and the Boar Man - who challenges Stan's beliefs about the "truth" and the "tale." However, when Stan meets Pancho Pirelli - the famous and mysterious piranha tank swimmer - Stan becomes his destined successor. Training begins as Clarence P. Clapp from DAFT (Department of Fishy Things) threatens to shut down the carnival. Aunt Annie and Uncle Ernie, who set off looking for Stan as soon as he ran away, find their way to the carnival lot to find Stan about to jump into the piranha tank to fulfill his destiny. Whether Stan will decide to jump and forgive his uncle is as unclear as whether Clarence P. Clapp will intervene and stop the carnival's shenanigans. As a story about family and individuality, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas embraces unique characters and a omniscient third-person narrator.
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Key Ideas: Individuality, compassion v. inhumane cruelty, destiny v. free will, runaway child, the definition of family, adventure v. ordinariness.
THE FIRE-EATERS
With the Cold War’s Cuban Missile Crisis in the background, McNulty, a tattooed and scarred war veteran who is now a street fire-eater and escapologist, captures Bobby Burns’s fascination. McNulty picks the boy out of the crowd as an assistant, leading Bobby to track down McNulty’s other performances and bring tarts, tea, and candles to his makeshift shelter in the dunes. Having just passed their 11-plus entrance exam, Aisla Spink skips school to work for her family’s sea coaling business and Bobby attends the Catholic grammar school in which headmaster Todd practices corporal punishment. However, the new kid of Keely Bay, Daniel Gower, speaks out against the sadistic reign by posting photographs of Todd strapping a student throughout the school. As the tension between Cuba and the Soviet Union increases, instructions for building fallout shelters are broadcast, Bobby’s dad’s cough looms, Daniel and Bobby are expelled when caught distributing the photographs, and the families build a massive bonfire, inviting McNulty so that companionship – although not safety – is ensured on what they believe could be their last night.
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Key Ideas: Corporal punishment, right v. wrong, the effects of war, the purpose of pain, compassion, the effects of others' decisions on us.
KATE, THE CAT, AND THE MOON
In David Almond's only picture book, Kate awakens to the soft cry of a white cat outside on her garden wall. However, as she purrs with the cat, she grows ears and a tail, transforming into a striped gray and brown cat. While grandma, mum and dad, and brother Pete sleep soundly, Kate joins the white cat on a nighttime tour of the neighborhood. With a fold-out illustration spread, Kate, the Cat and the Moon shows us what we miss out on while sleeping - a plane of dreaming people, a full moon, and the luxury of empty roads and shadowed gardens. Sharing their dreams over breakfast the next morning, the family bonds over their nightly adventures - and the question lingers about whether some were more real than others! |
Key Ideas: Dreams and dreaming, metamorphosis, the transformative power of the moon, wish fulfillment, freedom, cats, nighttime adventures.