David Almond is a British writer born in Newcastle on the north side of the Tyne and raised in Gateshead on the south of the river. His writing is infused with the culture and language of the northeast.
David’s latest book Bone Music is an extraordinary prose poem that distils and amplifies many of the themes from his earlier work. It’s the only novel that I have read cover to cover and then immediately started at the beginning again and read from cover to cover, so I was extremely excited to welcome David into The Reading Corner.
Bone Music
Sylvia, brave-hearted 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 fells 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.
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 about what it really is to be a human being alive today.