A Song For Ella Grey

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; ofhigh 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.

Age range: 9-12

Tag:

Publication date: 02/10/14

Publisher: Hachette Children's Group

Buy

Reviews for A Song For Ella Grey

[David Almond] is becoming the Gabriel Garcia Marques of Children’s Fiction

Janni Howker, TES

Winner of the Guardian Children’s Book Prize 2015

A desperately romantic and deeply lyrical re-imagining of Orpheus and Eurydice… David Almond at his best.

Bookbag

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.

Daily Mail

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)

The Times

Bliddy marvellous, as his Geordie protagonists would say.

The Independent on Sunday

The writing is just so magical… A stunning book which I will definitely read again. — The Best Children’s Books of 2014

The Guardian