The healing and transcendent power of love reaches its height in Skellig, My Dad’s a Birdman, and The Fire-Eaters. In Skellig, Michael constantly feels his dual heartbeat – one his own and the other, his dying baby sister’s – and an unconventional doctor believes in cod oil, love, and “positive thinking.” Lizzie – in My Dad’s a Birdman – skips school to support her unstable father, helping him build a nest and design his costume. She even leaps into the air with homemade feathers, proving her faith in her father.
Michael: “Can love help a person get better?”
Dr. MacNabola: “Love is the child that scatters death”
Michael: “William Blake?”
Dr. MacNabola: “We have an educated man before us.”
–Skellig, p. 161
Bobby’s compassionate prayers plead for his father’s ominous cough to be his own in The Fire-Eaters. Although Catholic imagery and concepts (i.e. heaven, angels, prayer, Sacred Heart school, Jesus-like Bobby Burns) abound, Almond writes not to encourage faith in angels, God, or even heaven. Never lapsing into a preachy tone, Almond encourages the difficult belief – especially in today’s world – “that everything, however horrible it is, will work out OK in the end” (Jones, 2008). “You got to believe, don’t you? Or nowt’d ever happen. Nowt worthwhile.” – Nitasha,The Boy who Swam with Piranhas, p. 89
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