A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

 

2015 

The monster in the title takes many forms. It is an ancient spirit in a Yew tree, a nightmare, cancer, death, illness, humanity, a caring grandmother, an almost always absent father, a group of bullies and the protagonist himself, Conor.

The concept was created by Siobhan Dowd, but sadly she died of breast cancer before she could start writing. The task was taken on by Patrick Ness but he made no attempt to replicate Dowd's voice.   

    

This is a brave novel. It tackles many young adult themes – peer pressure, family relationships, bullying and school. There is a touch of the paranormal too in the story. It also brings us face-to-face with death and illness; some of the descriptions of Conor's mother's illness are quite graphic. 

Conor is not altogether likeable yet Ness manages to make us empathise with him. 

In the end, it is up to the reader to decide exactly who or what the monster is.  For sure, it brings some wisdom and poses many questions.                     

The Bird Within Me

2020

The story is inspired by paintings, letters and diaries of the Swedish painter Berta Hansson.

There is a lot of sadness in the text: Berta is labelled as useless, she is dissatisfied with her art, especially as it does not prevent her mother, who suffers from TB,  eventually dying. Berta and her siblings have to constantly be tested for the disease and after Mother’s death the house has to be thoroughly cleaned.

We have clues that the story is set in the past: the hold the TB has, the visit of the mother to the sanatorium, we see older sister Julia putting on stockings and we see some delightful extracts from the fashion pages of an old newspaper. Father’s attitude is a little old-fashioned; Why should a girl go away to be educated?

Yet Berta manages with the doctor’s help to go away to study art.

The illustrations represent the type of work Berta would have been doing at the age she is in the story.

Who will read this text? It is rather long for a picture book and has rather more text that we would expect in a story for pre-school children. Indeed the content is more suitable for an older child or even a young adult or adult. Yet the pictures, the story and the text work together to give us an authentic picture of Berta’s life.  It is a text that the reader can return to time and time again.    

This is a highly illustrated with full colour pictures. The pictures add to the story. There are sixty-five double spreads including end-matter which add up to the 228 pages of core text.  

At the end of the book is a twelve page biography of Berta.