A review by chantelleatkinswriter
Kit's Wilderness by David Almond

5.0

This book had such an effect on me, I felt like I had been sucked into another world for the time I was reading it. I started it late one night and picked it up again in the morning to finish it. To say I was mesmerised is an understatement. There is something so simple yet beautifully profound about the writing and the setting of the scenery. This is the story of Kit, who moves with his parents back to the old mining town they came from Stoneygate, when his grandmother dies and his grandfather needs looking after. Kit feels immediately at home and welcomed back to the old town where he is eyed as someone who belongs, someone whose heritage goes back decades. Kit is drawn to a boy named John Askew, a dark, hulking brute of a boy, who engineers a spooky game with the local kids called Death. The kids chosen are the kids whose ancestors died as children in the mines. There is a very haunting scene where Kit's grandfather shows him his own name on a monument to the dead children. Christopher Watson, aged 13. Askew's name is also there; John Askew, aged 13. This link compels Kit to want to play the game of Death, during which a child is chosen by a spinning knife to stay in the dark on their own to die. When they emerge, they are born again. It's a child's game, yet there is something undeniably dark about it and Kit finds himself drawn to the brutish darkness of Askew, a boy who is brutalised at home. There is so much to this short and simple book, that it's hard to know what to say. Instead, I will say what I loved. I loved the characters to such an extent, I felt like searching for them after I'd finished reading. I missed them. Kit was a great main character and I also felt incredibly drawn to the sad darkness of Askew. Allie was a breath of fresh air, the bright, energetic young girl Kit befriends. The grandfather was also wonderful. These are people that will stay with me forever. I did not want this book to end. There is an eerieness to it. What is real and what is child's play? You are never quite sure how much is their imagination and how much is actually happening. The old mining town and it's past tragedies provided a remarkable and suitably haunting location for the story to unfold. There is a sadness emanating from this story. Just beautiful. I felt dazed coming out of the other side. This is a book about the light and the dark and what draws us to both. It's a story about family, forgiveness, love, hate and loneliness. It's a story about friendship, about refusing to give up on people. It;s just stunning.