Books

Heaven Eyes

David Almond, Author

Paperback

Imprint: Hodder Children's Books

Publication date: December 5, 2013

Category: Family & home stories (Children's / Teenage)

ISBN: 9780340944974

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Erin, January and Mouse live in a children’s home, Whitegates. They often dream of escape, and frequently journey into the outside world. Running away is something they know all about. But this time January builds a raft, and the three of them head precariously down river. Towards the Black Middens. This time they might never come back. When they stumble across a disused factory and its strange inhabitants – Grampa and Heaven Eyes – they wonder if they’ll even have the choice. Heaven Eyes is the girl who should have drowned at sea. The mysterious girl desperately searching for her family, hoping that these three might be the family she has lost. She has a secret history only Grampa knows. And does he trust these three invaders enough to tell them? Erin feels a sisterly responsibility for Heaven Eyes, Mouse longs to belong anywhere and anyhow, but January thinks Grampa’s a murderer. Whatever happens, all three have a part to play. . .

A stunning novel from the author of the modern children’s classic Skellig – winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.

Reviews

Another beautiful book by David Almond for teenagers with yearning hearts. Surprsing, perfect and mysterious all at once.

The Times

Almond at his thought-provoking best

Time Out

Surprising, perfect and mysterious all at once . . .

The Times

With his magic realism style, he is becoming the Gabriel Garcia Marquez of children's fiction.

Janni Howker, Times Educational Supplement

David Almond understands the joy and fear of being alive better than most - Heaven Eyes is a mysterious gift of a novel.

The Times

Both original and unnerving, this really is a fantastic book.

The Bookseller

Almond's eerie tale is an astonishing piece of writing about the way that the living and the dead find comfort in each other . . . A very grown-up, totally compelling book, that, like Almond's brilliant Skellig, is about the lost and found, abandonment and redemption, love and faith - particularly faith in yourself and others.

Guardian

Beautifully written, intensely imagined, dark, ferocious yet suffused with hope, the book is a breathtaking experience.

Carousel

A beautiful and eerie tale.

The Guardian

Another astonishingly original novel.

The Observer

A remarkable novel about love and the heroic refusal to give in to sadness.

The Scotsman

Strange and beautiful.

The Mail on Sunday

David Almond

David Almond is the author of Skellig, My Name is Mina, Island, Bone Music and many other novels, stories, picture books, opera librettos, songs and plays. His work is translated into 40 languages, and is widely adapted for stage and screen. His major awards include the Carnegie Medal, two Whitbread Awards, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, the Michael L Printz Award (USA), Le Prix Sorcières (France), the Nonino International Prize, the James Kruss Prize and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. He has also won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the world’s most prestigious prize for children’s authors. In 2021, David was awarded an OBE for services to literature.

David speaks at festivals and conferences around the world. He is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. He is widely regarded as one of the most exciting, inspirational and innovative children’s authors writing today. He has one amazing daughter. He lives in Newcastle, the city in which he was born.