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A review by grace1994
Skellig by David Almond
3.0
3/5
"We thought of Persephone for a while in silence. I imagined her struggling her way toward us. She squeezed through black tunnels. She took wrong turnings, banged her head against the rocks. Sometimes she gave up in despair and she just lay weeping in the pitch darkness. But she struggled on. She waded through icy underground streams. She fought through bedrock and clay and iron ore and coal, through fossils of ancient creatures, the skeletons of dinosaurs, the buried remains of ancient cities. She burrowed past the tangled roots of great trees. She was torn and bleeding but she kept telling herself to move onward and upward. She told herself that soon she'd see the light of the sun again and feel the warmth of the world again."
I decided to buy this book when I saw it in a charity shop about a year ago and remembered it vaguely from studying it in English in primary school. It's probably the first time I've properly read a kids book since I was a child so reviewing this is kind of difficult.
Overall, I thought it was a nice story. Sweet and empathetic and hopeful, helpful for kids to read who may be scared or unsure of their feelings towards something scary, especially to do with health of a family member. But it didn't blow me away. It was just nice. I will say that I loved Mina's character, she was probably the best part for me, her and the parts about the baby. Skellig himself was a bit 'meh' to me as a character. I didn't walk away from the book feeling much towards him at all. The Persephone quote from above was my favourite part of the book and really stuck with me...
All that being said, a nice enough book but nothing to shout about.
"We thought of Persephone for a while in silence. I imagined her struggling her way toward us. She squeezed through black tunnels. She took wrong turnings, banged her head against the rocks. Sometimes she gave up in despair and she just lay weeping in the pitch darkness. But she struggled on. She waded through icy underground streams. She fought through bedrock and clay and iron ore and coal, through fossils of ancient creatures, the skeletons of dinosaurs, the buried remains of ancient cities. She burrowed past the tangled roots of great trees. She was torn and bleeding but she kept telling herself to move onward and upward. She told herself that soon she'd see the light of the sun again and feel the warmth of the world again."
I decided to buy this book when I saw it in a charity shop about a year ago and remembered it vaguely from studying it in English in primary school. It's probably the first time I've properly read a kids book since I was a child so reviewing this is kind of difficult.
Overall, I thought it was a nice story. Sweet and empathetic and hopeful, helpful for kids to read who may be scared or unsure of their feelings towards something scary, especially to do with health of a family member. But it didn't blow me away. It was just nice. I will say that I loved Mina's character, she was probably the best part for me, her and the parts about the baby. Skellig himself was a bit 'meh' to me as a character. I didn't walk away from the book feeling much towards him at all. The Persephone quote from above was my favourite part of the book and really stuck with me...
All that being said, a nice enough book but nothing to shout about.