The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean - Softcover

David Almond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141332050 ISBN 13: 9780141332055

Publisher: Puffin Books, 2012

Synopsis

i wos a secrit shy and tungtied emptyheded thing. I wos tort to read and rite and spell by my tenda littl muther & by Mr McCaufrey the butcha & by Missus Malone and her gosts. So I am not cleva, so please forgiv my folts and my mistayks. I am the won that glares into your harts & that prowls insyde yor deepist dremes. Wonce I was The Anjel Childe. Now I am The Monster. Just read and lissen and take note. Let the words enter yor blud & boans. I am Billy Dean. This is the truth. This is my tale.

About this title

About the Author

David Almond is known worldwide as the Michael L. Printz, Carnegie, Whitbread, and Smarties Award-winning author of Skellig, Clay, and many other novels, stories, and plays, including The Savage and Slog’s Dad, both illustrated by Dave McKean. In 2010, he was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award for the body of his work. David Almond lives in Northumberland, England, with his family.

Review

Billy [is] an absolutely unforgettable creation. One of the most critically acclaimed YA authors working today, Almond refuses to rest on his laurels, and here he delivers his finest book in years.
—Booklist (starred review)

Skellig-creator Almond’s books are always mystical—close to the warm, dark heartbeats of man and beast—but this one, spelled mostly phonetically to show how Billy Dean might actually have written it, is perhaps even more raw, sensuous and savage. Dark, unsettling and fluid as water, Almond’s suspenseful tour de force considers the cycle of life, themes of war, God and godlessness, and, as ever, "How all things flow into each other."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

[A] mesmerizing post-apocalyptic tale... [T]he novel speaks feelingly to the love between parent and child, as well as the harm parents can do.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Like many of David Almond's novels, his latest dark masterpiece transcends the everyday world to exist in a mystical landscape all its own. ... The author challenges his readers with phonetic spellings, which, along with a deft use of magical realism, build a world that--like so many that Almond creates--is both darker and more wondrous than our own.
—Shelf Awareness for Readers

Billy's ability to find surreal beauty in strange things, such as the dead mice he lovingly dissects in his room, hearkens back to Almond’s treatment of Skellig and Heaven Eyes, and the message is also similar: wonder and loveliness can be recovered from the ashes of the festering evil. Billy’s innocence doesn’t save him from that evil, but his steadfast ability to find goodness, beauty, love, and mystery in the darkest places lights the way forward, for himself and readers alike.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

[A] postapocalyptic, psychological novel... The compelling story is told from Billy’s point of view and with the language and phonetic spelling of a child whose development has been stunted by his lifelong imprisonment.
—School Library Journal

Edition details

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141332050
• ISBN 13: 9780141332055
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256