BONE MUSIC by David Almond
This wonderful tale transports the reader from the city to the forests and fells of Northern England. Under a boundless starry sky, the unforgettable Sylvia Carr reconnects with the ancient past and discovers what it really means to be young in the world today.
Sylvia, bravehearted and rebellious, moves into wild Northumberland from the city of Newcastle. She feels alien in this huge, silent, seemingly empty landscape, but then she meets Gabriel, a strange yet familiar boy. As they roam the forests and fields together, she sees nature with new eyes. She becomes aware that the past is all around her, and is deep inside herself. From the wing of a dead buzzard, they create a hollow bone – the kind of flute that was created and used in rituals in the distant past. Alone and over the course of one magical night, Sylvia plays the bone and encounters her ancient self, and is reconnected with the prehistoric world. She is rewilded, turned into a more vivid version of herself. She returns to the city ready to face the opportunities and challenges of the modern world.
This is a book of hope and joy – a book that celebrates humanity and explores the deep connections between ourselves and nature. It is timely and original. it speaks to young people in about what it really is to be a human being alive today.
‘Spell-binding… impossible to resist… breathless, intoxicating prose. [Almond’s] books seem to exist in their own otherworldly universe, outside all the trends in modern publishing, yet resolutely of the now.’ ~ The Glasgow Herald