Kits Wilderness, David Almond
Kits Wilderness, David Almond
1 Rating(s)
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Kit's Wilderness

Author: David Almond

Narrator: Charles Keating

Unabridged: 5 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/07/2000


Synopsis

Written in haunting, lyrical prose, Kit’s Wilderness examines the bonds of family from one generation to the next, and explores how meaning and beauty can be revealed from the depths of darkness.

A Michael L. Printz Award Winner
An ALA Notable Book
A Publishers Weekly Best Book
A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century

The Watson family moves to Stoneygate, an old coal-mining town, to care for Kit’s recently widowed grandfather. When Kit meets John Askew, another boy whose family has both worked and died in the mines, Askew invites Kit to join him in playing a game called Death. As Kit’s grandfather tells him stories of the mine’s past and the history of the Watson family, Askew takes Kit into the mines, where the boys look to find the childhood ghosts of their long-gone ancestors.

About The Author

“I grew up in a big extended Catholic family [in the north of England]. I listened to the stories and songs at family parties. I listened to the gossip that filled Dragone’s coffee shop. I ran with my friends through the open spaces and the narrow lanes. We scared each other with ghost stories told in fragile tents on dark nights. We promised never-ending friendship and whispered of the amazing journeys we’d take together. I sat with my grandfather in his allotment, held tiny Easter chicks in my hands while he smoked his pipe and the factory sirens wailed and larks yelled high above. I trembled at the images presented to us in church, at the awful threats and glorious promises made by black-clad priests with Irish voices. I scribbled stories and stitched them into little books. I disliked school and loved the library, a little square building in which I dreamed that books with my name on them would stand one day on the shelves. Skellig, my first children’s novel, came out of the blue, as if it had been waiting a long time to be told. It seemed to write itself. It took six months, was rapidly taken by Hodder Children’s Books and has changed my life. By the time Skellig came out, I’d written my next children’s novel, Kit’s Wilderness. These books are suffused with the landscape and spirit of my own childhood. By looking back into the past, by re-imagining it and blending it with what I see around me now, I found a way to move forward and to become something that I am intensely happy to be: a writer for children.”David Almond is the winner of the 2001 Michael L. Printz Award for Kit’s Wilderness, which has also been named best book of the year by School Library Journal, Booklist, and Publishers Weekly. He has been called "the foremost practitioner in children's literature of magical realism." (Booklist) His first book for young readers, Skellig, is a Printz Honor winner. David Almond lives with his family in Newcastle, England.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Carmen on January 14, 2023

I think anyone who reads the first page of this would want to continue. It grips you. They thought we had disappeared, and they were wrong. They thought we were dead, and they were wrong. We stumbled together out of the ancient darkness into the shining valley. The sun glared down on us. The whole wo......more

Goodreads review by Chloe on July 13, 2023

Kit's Wilderness is an underrated, unknown, incredible book. Two hours to read this book, on a whim, because I had free time and wanted to read something short in one sitting. Two hours to captivate me, pull me into an enchanting story, and rip out my heart, naturally. This book turned me into a cry......more

Goodreads review by Maciek on February 09, 2017

"Everybody's got the seam of goodness in them, Kit," said Grandpa. "Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light." Kit's Wilderness is an eerie, dreamlike novel, permeating with a feeling of sadness and loss. It is, at times, a rather dark book - as I was reading it I w......more

Goodreads review by Kim on March 29, 2014

Kit’s Wilderness I wonder how many times I’ve seen this title and assumed it was an American Girl book. Truly a shame… This has been out for 15 years… 15 years that I could have carried Kit and his story with me. It almost eluded me once again, when I noticed the author, David Almond, I knew that n......more

Goodreads review by Sali-steady-read on July 22, 2020

It was magical, yes. I like the way Mr. Almond narrates smoothly, as if the characters are flowing through the story, as if they were meant to be who they are, to do as they do. You never get tired, or bored reading this novel. I still have Skellig by the same author as my favorite, but there are ot......more


Quotes

"Almond . . . creates a heartbreakingly real world fused with magical realism . . . suffusing the multilayered plot with an otherworldly glow." — Booklist, Starred

"Almond offers another tantalizing blend of human drama, surrealism and allegory." — Publishers Weekly, Starred


Awards

  • Printz Awards