David Almond Books In Order

Skellig Books In Order

  1. My Name is Mina (2010)
  2. Skellig (1998)

Novels

  1. A Kind of Heaven (1997)
  2. Sleepless Nights (1998)
  3. Kit’s Wilderness (1999)
  4. Heaven Eyes (2000)
  5. Secret Heart (2001)
  6. The Fire-Eaters (2003)
  7. Clay (2005)
  8. Click (2007)
  9. My Dad’s a Birdman (2007)
  10. The Savage (2008)
  11. Raven Summer (2009)
  12. The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon (2010)
  13. Slog’s Dad (2010)
  14. The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean (2011)
  15. The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (2012)
  16. The Tightrope Walkers (2014)
  17. A Song for Ella Grey (2014)
  18. The Tale of Angelino Brown (2017)
  19. Island (2017)
  20. The Colour of the Sun (2018)
  21. War is Over (2018)
  22. Brand New Boy (2020)
  23. Bone Music (2021)
  24. Paper Bird, Paper Boat (2022)

Collections

  1. Out of This World (2000)
  2. Counting Stars (2000)
  3. Where Your Wings Were (2002)
  4. Mouse Bird Snake Wolf (2007)
  5. Free? (2009)
  6. Two Plays (2010)
  7. Nesting (2013)
  8. Half a Creature from the Sea (2014)
  9. The Great War (2015)

Plays

  1. Wild Girl, Wild Boy (2002)

Picture Books

  1. Kate, the Cat and the Moon (2004)
  2. Jackdaw Summer (2008)
  3. The Dam (2018)
  4. Annie Lumsden, The Girl from the Sea (2020)

Novellas

  1. Harry Miller’s Run (2015)
  2. Joe Quinn’s Poltergeist (2019)

Chapter Books

  1. Klaus Vogel and the Bad Lads (2013)

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David Almond Books Overview

My Name is Mina

There’s an empty notebook lying on the table in the moonlight. It’s been there for an age. I keep on saying that I’ll write a journal. So I’ll start right here, right now. I open the book and write the very first words: My Name is Mina and I love the night. Then what shall I write? I can’t just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I’ll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or a beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? And so Mina writes and writes in her notebook, and here is her journal, Mina’s life in Mina’s own words: her stories and dreams, experiences and thoughts, her scribblings and nonsense, poems and songs. Her vivid account of her vivid life. In this stunning book, David Almond revisits Mina before she has met Michael, before she has met Skellig, in what is a thought provoking and extraordinary prequel to his best selling debut novel, Skellig winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.

Skellig

Man, bird, or angel? Who or what is Skellig?Michael was looking forward to moving into a new house. It was all going to be wonderful. But now his baby sister’s ill, his parents are frantic, and Dr. Death has come to call. Michael feels helpless. Then one day he steps into the crumbling garage. What is this thing beneath the spiderwebs and dead flies? A human being, or a strange kind of beast never seen before? The only person Michael can confide in is his new friend Mina. Together they carry the creature out into the light, and Michael’s world changes forever. Told in lyrical prose, and beautifully read by the author David Almond, Skellig is a mystery, an adventure, and a family story, in which Michael learns about nature, poetry, and the healing power of love.

Kit’s Wilderness

The Printz Award winning classicgets a new look.’It was very deep, Kit. Very dark. And every one of us was scared of it. As a lad I’d wake up trembling, knowing that as a Watson born in Stoneygate I’d soon be following my ancestors into the pit,’ so Kit’s grandfather tells him. The Watson family moves to Stoneygate, an old coal mining town, to care for Kit’s recently widowed grandfather. When Kit meets John Askew, another boy whose family had both worked and died in the mines, Askew invites Kit to join him to play a game called Death. As Kit’s grandfather provides stories of the mine’s past and the history of the Watson family, the boys search the mines to find the childhood ghosts of their long gone ancestors. Written in haunting, lyrical prose, Kit’s Wilderness examines the bonds of family from one generation to the next, and explores how meaning and beauty can be revealed from the depths of darkness.A Michael L. Printz Honor BookAn ALA Notable Book A Publishers Weekly Best Book

Heaven Eyes

Read by Amanda Plummerapprox. 4 hours3 cassettesErin Law and her friends are Damaged Children. At least that is the label given to them by Maureen, the woman who runs the orphanage that they live in. Damaged, Beyond Repair because they have no parents to take care of them. But Erin knows that if they care for each other they can put up with the psychologists, the social workers, the therapists at least most of the time. Sometimes there is nothing left but to run away, to run for freedom. And that is what Erin and two friends do, run away one night downriver on a raft. What they find on their journey is stranger than you can imagine, maybe, and you might not think it’s true. But Erin will tell you it is all true. And the proof is a girl named Heaven Eyes, who sees through all the darkness in the world to the joy that lies beneath.

Secret Heart

Joe Maloney is out of place in this world. His mother wants him to be a man, and he can t be that yet. His only friend, Stanny Mole, wants to teach him how to kill, and Joe can t learn that. Joe’s mind is always somewhere else: on the weird creatures he sees in the distant sky, the songs he hears in the air around him, the vibrations of life he feels everywhere. Everybody laughs at Joe Maloney. And then a tattered circus comes to town, and a tiger comes for him. It leads him out into the night, and nothing in Joe Maloney s world is ever the same again. The transformative power of imagination and beauty flows through this story of a boy who walks where others wouldn t dare to go, a boy with the heart of a tiger, an unlikely hero who knows that sometimes the most important things are the most mysterious. From the Audio Cassette Unabridged edition.

The Fire-Eaters

Hodder Literature: a new and exciting series of literature titles for Key Stage 3 for whole class use. It’s 1962 and Bobby Burns is bracing himself for the beginning of term. Not only is he starting at the cheerless grammar school but his dad is mysteriously ill and the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens to trigger off nuclear war things are changing in his sleepy Keely Bay. But then he’s got his friends to help him, all fearless in their own ways: his old friends, tough guy Joseph Connor and the wonder working Ailsa Spink; and his new ones, Bohemian Daniel Gower and the fire eating street performer McNulty. With thoughts of power, pain, death, war and friendship swimming around in his head, Bobby must come to terms with both injustice and hope at home, school and in the world outside of Keely Bay.

Clay

Hodder Literature: an exciting series of literature titles for Key Stage 3 for whole class use. Davie and his best friend Geordie are ordinary boys, growing up in a close knit Catholic community in Tyneside. Then a new boy arrives. Stephen Rose has a disturbed past but he also possesses artistic talents and a strange power over people. Stephen makes astonishingly lifelike clay models and persuades Davie to help him make a clay monster who will obey his creators. The monster comes to life and seems torn between the ‘good’ Davie and the ‘evil’ Stephen. Then Steven uses the monster, Clay, to attack the local bully Martin Mould Mouldy. Mouldy is killed and this creates a crisis of conscience for Davie. Stephen disappears and Davie gains some peace by burying Clay’s remains in his garden. Was he ever real or not? As Davie says at the end of the book: ‘You don’t believe me. Doesn’t matter. Tell yourself it’s just a story, nothing more.’

Click

A video message from a dead person. A larcenous teenager. A man who can stick his left toe behind his head and in his ear. An epileptic girl seeking answers in a fairy tale. A boy who loses everything in World War II, and his brother who loses even more. And a family with a secret so big that it changes everything.

The world’s best beloved authors each contribute a chapter in the life of the mysterious George ‘Gee’ Keane, photographer, soldier, adventurer and enigma. Under different pens, a startling portrait emerges of a man, his family, and his gloriously complicated tangle of a life.

The full list of authors includes:

Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize winning author of A STAR CALLED HENRY; Nick Hornby, author of ABOUT A BOY; Ruth Ozeki, author of MY YEAR OF MEATS; Margo Lanagan, Prinz Honor Award winning author of BLACK JUICE; Linda Sue Park, Newbery Award winning author of A SINGLE SHARD; David Almond, winner of the Whitbread Award and Carnegie Medal and author of SKELLIG; Gregory Maguire, author of WICKED; Tim Wynne Jones, two time winner of Canada’s Governor General’s award and author of ONE OF THE KINDER PLANETS; Deborah Ellis, author of THE BREADWINNER; Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl Books.

And more are signing on!

My Dad’s a Birdman

Join a young girl and her dad as they find their wings and take to the skies in a joyful, quirky, tender tale from a masterful author and illustrator. In a rainy town in the north of England, there are strange goings on. Dad is building a pair of wings, eating flies, and feathering his nest. Auntie Doreen is getting cross and making dumplings. Contest barker Mr. Poop is parading the streets shouting louder and louder, and even Mr. Mint, the headmaster, is not quite himself. And watching it all is Lizzie, missing her mam and looking after Dad by letting him follow his newfound whimsy. From an inspired creative pairing comes a story of the Great Human Bird Competition a poignant, exuberant tale of the healing power of flights of fancy, and a very special father and daughter bond.

The Savage

This is a uniquely presented, touching tale of grief, solace and hope from a master of contemporary storytelling and a visionary artist. Imagine you wrote a story and that story came true. This is exactly what happens to Blue Baker when he writes about a savage living alone in the woods near his home. After his dad’s death, Blue finds comfort in dreaming of a wild kid who survives on a diet of berries and the occasional hapless passerby. But when The Savage pays a night time visit to the local bully, boundaries become blurred and Blue begins to wonder where he ends and The Savage begins. Part novel, part graphic novel, this moving story features striking art from the award winning Dave McKean. This is Carnegie, Whitbread and Smarties award winner David Almond’s second novel for Walker Books after ‘My Dad’s a Birdman’ 9781406304862.

Raven Summer

A captivating new novel from Printz Award winner David Almond. Liam and his friend Max are playing in their neighborhood when the call of a bird leads them out into a field beyond their town. There, they find a baby lying alone atop a pile of stones with a note pinned to her clothing. Mystified, Liam brings the baby home to his parents. They agree to take her in, but police searches turn up no sign of the baby’s parents. Finally they must surrender the baby to a foster family, who name her Allison. Visiting her in Northumberland, Liam meets Oliver, a foster son from Liberia who claims to be a refugee from the war there, and Crystal, a foster daughter. When Liam s parents decide to adopt Allison, Crystal and Oliver are invited to her christening. There, Oliver tells Liam about how he will be slaughtered if he is sent back to Liberia. The next time Liam sees Crystal, it is when she and Oliver have run away from their foster homes, desperate to keep Oliver from being sent back to Liberia. In a cave where the two are hiding, Liam learns the truth behind Oliver s dark past and is forced to ponder what all children are capable of. From the Hardcover edition.

The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon

Crackpot notions, community spirit, and sky high aspirations transform a quiet boy’s life in this whimsical tale from the stellar team of David Almond and Polly Dunbar. There are some strange ideas floating around in Paul s apartment block. There s Mabel, who now calls herself Molly and whose brother hides under a paper bag. Then there s Clarence, the poodle who thinks he can fly. But the strangest notion of all is Paul s. You see, Paul believes that the moon is not the moon but a great hole in the sky. And he knows that sausages are better than war. How on earth or not will he find out if he is bonkers or a genius? With a few equally bonkers or genius helpers and a very long ladder, that s how! From a master of magical realism and a celebrated artist comes another delightfully outrageous expedition.

Counting Stars

With stories that shimmer and vibrate in the bright heat of memory, David Almond creates a glowing mosaic of his life growing up in a large, loving Catholic family. He tenderly portrays those moments of awakening that carry a boy’s imagination far from the comforts and limits of his crowded home to the infinity of the star studded universe. Here are the kernels of his novels hope and fear, darkness and light, the bonds of ignorance and the healing power of love in stories suffused with joy and an endless sense of wonder at the power of the imagination and the resilience of the human heart.

Free?

This is a celebration of human rights. To commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Walker Books and Amnesty International have joined together to create a short story collection for young adults, celebrating what it means to be Free?. Hosting a variety of talented children’s authors from all around the globe, the anthology embraces such themes as asylum, law, education and faith in a way that will both inspire and entertain.

Two Plays

David Almond turns his talents to drama in these Two Plays. Skellig is the dramatization of his highly acclaimed novel. What has Michael found in the derelict garage? What is this creature that lies in the darkness? Is it human, or a strange beast never seen before? And what will happen in the world when he carries it out into the light?Wild Girl, Wild Boy is an original play produced in London by the Pop Up Theatre company. Young Elaine has recently lost her father, and now she spends her days dreaming in the family’s garden, skipping school, unable to read or write. One day, Elaine conjures up a Wild Boy from spells and fairy seed. No one else can see him, and Elaine disappears into a world of fantasy where she and Wild Boy remember the teachings of her father. Will her mother ever come to understand?These Two Plays introduce a new talent from the remarkable David Almond.

Wild Girl, Wild Boy

Hodder Literature: a new and exciting series of literature titles for Key Stage 3 for whole class use. Dramatisation of the story of Elaine Grew, a brave and troubled young soul. Last year her dad died and now Elaine’s in turmoil. She squabbles with her mum and begins to stay away from school. Shunned by her friends, Elaine spends day after day in the overgrown wilderness of her dad’s old allotment, where once she was so happy. Here she crawls like a lizard, slithers like a snake and works spells with spiders, just as she used to when he was with her. What is Elaine searching for, in this place of memories, dreams and magic?

Kate, the Cat and the Moon

Kate has just drifted off to sleep when a mysterious white cat appears at her window and beckons her out into the night. As Kate follows, she feels herself changing-her ears growing and peaking, her teeth growing tiny and sharp, her tongue roughening. For one glorious night, Kate roams her familiar neighborhood as a cat, jumping and prowling and climbing as she never could before. This dreamy tale, illustrated by Stephen Lambert’s color-drenched pastel drawings, is perfect for bedtime reading.

Jackdaw Summer

A long hot summer A wild boy An abandoned baby An act of violence Every summer Liam and Max roam the wild countryside of Northumberland but this year things are different. One hot summer’s day a jackdaw leads the two boys into an ancient farm house where they find a baby, wrapped in a blanket, with a scribbled note pinned to it: PLESE LOOK AFTER HER RITE. THIS IS A CHILDE OF GOD. And so begins Jackdaw Summer. A summer when friendships are tested. A summer when lines between good and bad are blurred. A summer that Liam will never forget…

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