Walker Books, 2016. ISBN 9781406365771
(Age: 10+), Highly recommended. Death. Cancer. Nightmares. Fear. Bullying. School. Hospitals. With this new collector's edition, published to coincide with the film's release in 2016, extra material is included, making this a larger heavier tome than its first publication in 2011. Interviews with the cast, Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones and Lewis MacDonald, extra material from Patrick Ness, Jim Kay and producer, J A Bayona, stills from the film, extra graphics from Kay, all add to the luxuriousness of the book.
I read it from cover to cover, poring over the illustrations and stills, reeling again at its impact. The story of one family, particularly the lone boy and the effect of his mother's cancer, will stop readers in their tracks as they read the tale, augmented by the most emotive of illustrations. This is a marvelous publication and will ensure a dedicated following of the book and forthcoming film. My review written in 2011, follows.
From the start, the creeping menace of the Yew tree outside Conor's window invades the imagination of the reader. The amazing illustrations by Jim Kay storm through the book, evoking the shadow world that the monster lives in, paralleling the world now inhabited by Conor as he tries to care for his mother. The threat evoked by the malice of the monster's presence is palpable, but Conor derides its ability to make him cower in fear, as he knows something far worse. He has lived with his nightmare for a while, waking at 12.07 each night with a thuddering heart and sick dread. His mother sometimes stirs from her own disturbed sleep, vomitting in the basin, or awake with the aftermath of chemotherapy.
In this phenomenal tale begun by the late Siobhan Dowd, and written by Ness, we are treated to a superlative horror story, one that will ensure that word of mouth impels its speed around any group of young people from 10 to 15. Fenced in by the cancer which affects his mother, Conor finds that he is invisible at school, his one time friends avoid him, the bullies eventually giving up on him, bringing his resentment to the surface. All the time, the monster calls at 12.07, telling his stories which impel him to action. His destruction of his grandmother's front room brings no respite. Beating up the bully, finds only compassion from the school, not expulsion. Everywhere he turns he is pitied, not punished, and it is only with the last story that the monster makes him understand what he has kept hidden from everyone else as well as from himself.
Death makes its way into every family and this is the story of how one boy deals with it in the most extraordinary way, transferring his feelings to the Yew Tree outside the house, using it as a prop for his emotionally charged life, coping with an absent father, a grandmother he does not care for, and ultimately his dying mother. What began as a horror story, pulling in the reader through its breathtaking illustrations and storytelling, ends as an acceptance of the reality of death and the coming together of the boy and his mother. ReadPlus
Conor's mum has cancer; his father lives in America with his new family and rarely visits; he doesn't get along with his grandma who helps look after his mother; he's picked on by a bully and feels isolated from the other kids at school; and he consistently has the same nightmare that he tells no one about. No one, that is, until a monster spirit, in the form of a yew tree, comes to visit Conor (always at 12:07), to tell him three stories before Conor must tell him a fourth -- the story of his nightmare. The stories of the witch and the prince, the apothecary and the parson, and the invisible man indirectly relate to Conor's situation, but he does not realize their significance until the monster forces him to speak the thoughts he has been burying deep within himself and feeling horribly guilty over. Carnegie Medal-winner Ness's eloquent tale of pain and loss, inspired by an idea from author Siobhan Dowd prior to her early death from cancer in 2007, is both heart-wrenching and thought-provoking. The mysterious content of Conor's nightmare physically affects him while revealing itself organically and in emotionally powerful ways as Ness's story progresses. While some of Kay's drawings feel a bit one-dimensional and detached from the text, those involving the monster and his stories effectively capture and enhance the harrowing qualities of Ness's narrative. Horn Book Review
Patrick Ness is the author of the critically-acclaimed and bestselling Chaos Walking trilogy. He has won numerous awards including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Booktrust Teenage Prize, the Costa Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal. He lives in London. Siobhan Dowd was the widely-loved, prize-winning author of four books, two of which were published after her death from cancer, aged 47. In 2009, she became the first author ever posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal.
Booktopia
Patrick Ness has won the Carnegie Medal ... again! A Monster Calls is an utterly beautiful book in EVERY sense - which is why it won the Greenaway too. It's shape, form, content is the future of books in non-digital form. Children's publishing has been creating more and more disposable books for years and with the pressure of the digital world, here is the answer: truly beautiful objects to keep forever and a story you cannot forget. Congratulations to Patrick and illustrator Jim Kay. This video was recorded at the London Book Fair, April 2012. And an additional thank you to Patrick for giving me permission to post this. (12 min 53 sec) Candy Gourlay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e87jgtO9hHA
An extraordinarily moving novel about coming to terms with loss.
The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming... The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.
Costa Award winner Patrick Ness spins a tale from the final idea of much-loved Carnegie Medal winner Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself. Darkly mischievous and painfully funny, A Monster Calls is an extraordinarily moving novel of coming to terms with loss from two of our finest writers for young adults.
Booktopia