English / Great Britain
The song from somewhere else
Harrold, A. F.
(text)
Pinfold, Levi
(illus.)
London: Bloomsbury, 2016. – 215 p.
ISBN 978-1-4088-5336-8
Family | Friendship | Magic | Bullying
Reading age: 8+
White Ravens issue: 2017
A. F. Harrold blends reality and fantasy in this absorbing and moving story about the importance of family and friendship in the face of adversity. One summer day, Frank runs into bullies who cruelly throw her bag into a patch of stinging nettles. Nicholas, a boy from her class, helps her; and they escape to his house. Frank is intrigued by Nicholas’s home. It smells like an old forest, and peculiar music plays from somewhere deep inside the house. When Frank leaves, she cannot stop thinking about this music that fills and calms her. She isn’t sure she wants to be friends with Nicholas because he is ostracized even more than she, and she doesn’t want to become a bigger target. But she needs to hear the music again. When she returns and finds the music’s source, Frank knows she has stumbled on an important secret. What she doesn’t realize is that this secret could change the universe forever. Levi Pinfold’s beautiful, realistic pencil illustrations create an eerie atmosphere of wonderment that further bring the text to life.