Winner of the Guardian children’s book prize 2015
I’m the one who’s left behind. I’m the one to tell the tale. I knew them both… knew how they lived and how they died.
Claire is Ella Grey’s best friend. She’s there when the whirlwind arrives on the scene: catapulted into a North East landscape of gutted shipyards; of high arched bridges and ancient collapsed mines. She witnesses a love so dramatic it is as if her best friend has been captured and taken from her. But the loss of her friend to the arms of Orpheus is nothing compared to the loss she feels when Ella is taken from the world. This is her story – as she bears witness to a love so complete; so sure, that not even death can prove final.
I’m the one who’s left behind. I’m the one to tell the tale. I knew them both… knew how they lived and how they died.
Claire is Ella Grey’s best friend. She’s there when the whirlwind arrives on the scene: catapulted into a North East landscape of gutted shipyards; of high arched bridges and ancient collapsed mines. She witnesses a love so dramatic it is as if her best friend has been captured and taken from her. But the loss of her friend to the arms of Orpheus is nothing compared to the loss she feels when Ella is taken from the world. This is her story – as she bears witness to a love so complete; so sure, that not even death can prove final.
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Reviews
A ravishing, ingenious novel told in Almond's own hypnotic northern lilt.
[David Almond] is becoming the Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Children's Fiction.
A daring reworking of Orpheus amd Eurydice... a sense of transcendence... lush poetic prose.
Passages of magic.
This is absolutely beautiful and quite possibly my favourite Almond novel to date. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is retold against a wild Northumbrian landscape: life, death, love and myths. Just wonderful.
It is a challenging but riveting read
David Almond is a dazzling writer...exceptional... a breathtaking novel from a literary master.
Extraordinary
Extraordinary.
The writing is just so magical... A stunning book which I will definitely read again.
Intensely lyrical and oddly haunting...Almond's prose is a delight, each word so carefully chosen and melded to make a myth of contemporary adolescence
Beautiful and bewitching.
A revelation: his poetic prose seeps into your blood like word venom until you can't imagine reading anything else
Almond is an incredibly powerful storyteller; his poetic prose perfectly suits this type of tale, being dream-like and lyrical...a devastatingly poignant novel.
Beautiful writing.
Beautifully written... poetic and allusive.
Almond's lyrical prose fits the story perfectly.
Intriguing adaptation of the tale of Orpheus, skilfully crafted and blended with modern teen life and a real flavour of Northumberland. Haunting.
A revelation. Poetic prose seeps into your blood like word venom until you can't imagine reading anything else.
David Almond is a powerful storyteller and I was completely swept away by his latest poetic prose
Bliddy marvellous, as his Geordie protagonists would say.
A desperately romantic and deeply lyrical re-imagining of Orpheus and Eurydice... David Almond at his best. * * * * *
A desperately romantic and deeply lyrical re-imagining of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Full of the hums and thrums of emotions, landscape, music and poetry, it's David Almond at his best.
Almond is an incredibly powerful storyteller. Poetic... dreamlike and lyrical. A devastatingly poignant novel.
Almond's writing is superb.
Capturing the intensity of first love and its power to overcome even death, Almond's prose is a delight, each word so carefully chosen and melded to make a myth of comtemporary adolescence...will surprise and enthrall teenage readers in equal measure
Haunting poetic novel.
It's a desperately romantic and deeply lyrical reimagining of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Full of the hums and thrums of emotions, landscape, music and poetry, it's David Almond at his best
I thought the author told the story extremely well and I would recommend this book to anyone in their teens.
Beautiful writing...this is an author always on the side of the young, and as such offers a valuable counterweight to fashionable gloom in other teenage writing
Lyrical and dreamlike, this beautifully written story conjures up the insane intensity of first love and the effect it has on those caught up in its slipstream. Authentic teenage characters and attitudes, and Almond's control of emotion is superb.
A retelling of the myth of Orpheus... Almond's version is a revelation: his poetic prose seeps into your blood like word-venom until you can't imagine reading anything else (Children's Book of the Week)
Almond's poetic prose is especially apt for this tale -- one that moves in a deliberate, dreamlike way
A challenging but riveting read
Infused with lyricism and with the fire and oddness of adolescence. Fresh, involving and lucid, it is a song in itself, and teens will find it fills them with poignant longing and joy.
Skillfully crafted and blended...accessible with engaging main characters and haunting memorable plot.
A masterly retelling of the Orpheus myth. Lyrical prose is matched with equally beautiful passages.
a strong sense of mystery...lyrical... poetic...moves in a deliberate dreamlike way. A beautiful book that works on several levels A triumph. (Marcus Sedgwick)
A plangent tale of adolescent passion which re-packages the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Almond injects it with lyrical beauty and life.
This is the most beautifully written, haunting book for young adults that I have ever read
Spell-binding... impossible to resist... breathless, intoxicating prose. [Almond's] books seem to exist in their own otherworldly universe, outside all the trends in modern publishing, yet resolutely of the now.
Almond's lyrical prose fits the story perfectly
This year I loved A Song for Ella Grey by David Almond ... a powerful, lyrical book that's absorbing and moving and haunting
If somebody asked me to describe A Song for Ella Grey in word, I would have to tell them that I couldn't...it would be impossible to write it off in just a word