Skellig

Product Information

The story talks about Michael, a young boy, who moves into a new house with his family and discovers a strange frail creature in the decrepit, crumbling garage next to their house. Together with his new friend and neighbour Mina, Michael decides to help the creature and slowly discovers more and more about his intriguing and mysterious identity. Through their adventure, which almost seems like a dream, both children’s lives and view of the world is changed forever. He meets a girl named Mina from across the road and over the course of the story they become close. Mina is home-schooled. Nature, birds, drawing, the poems of William Blake and her relationship with Michael interest her. Often drawing or sculpting at home, she invites Michael to join in. The story unfolds cleverly through the tale and the ending doesn’t disappoint. We are left with a real sense of fulfilment yet still left in a sense of wonder and reflection. I rate this book 5 stars for its stellar plot, its intriguing characters and a hint of the supernatural. This book would be better aimed at children through year’s five to six due to the content and complexity of feelings it explores. Word of warning: there are three instances of inappropriate language for primary ages therefore it may be best to either ‘bleep’ them out if you are reading to the child, or find a way to ‘delete’ them from the book.

The worksheet has a notepad design that children are encouraged to draw, write and doodle on to help them get into the mind of the different characters and have a better understanding of the story. How does this Skellig worksheet teach children?

Explore our most popular collections

This worksheet helps children to empathise with and imagine Mina's thoughts and feelings as her character progresses through the novel. If you like this resource, take a look at this Skellig Comprehension on chapters 1-10. What is Skellig? Given the state of decay of the garage, Michael and Mina move Skellig to a safer place. In helping him walk, they discover that he actually has wings, although they are dry and folded up. When the children ask Skellig 'what' he actually is, he says: " 'something', combining aspects of human, owl and angel." With the dedicated care of Michael and Mina, Skellig eventually grows stronger and his wings fuller.

The tension in the book between evolution and the existence of the supernatural was so forced that I couldn't concentrate on the characters or what they were doing; it felt a bit too much like the wife in the Murder of Gonzago. And I think this was a lost opportunity for Almond. The middle ground between science and the supernatural -- which is where I think most of the people I know personally would situate themselves -- doesn't get enough representation in our pop culture. The fight between the most credulous believers and the unbelievers gets all the play, but those folks somewhere in the middle are a bigger group by far (at least that's my guess) than the ones on the ends of the spectrum, and they are forced to listen to those who don't share their opinions all the time. Yet here, finally, they get a book looking at things from their perspective, but Almond strayed to far from just showing them the middle ground and entered the realm of lecturing on the middle ground. And that bummed me right out. Touched with a visionary intensity, this strange, hugely readable and life-affirming tale exercises every muscle of the imaginationHowever, some elements of this book may be frightening to young children, such as a ghost-like creature eating live insects and children growing wings and dancing in the air with a supernatural creature. This book may be suitable for children that are 10 or above, adults or more mature audience. Skellig is an ambiguous yet thought-provoking read which delves into religious and spiritual concepts. The novel covers real-life issues such as the difficulties families face when a child is hospitalised and the damaging effects this has on both adults and children. Throughout the tale Almond embeds the unfamiliar and the magical within the everyday life of a child, and this combination serves as an interesting and challenging resource for children in Years 5 and 6.

When Michael goes into the garage, he finds a strange emaciated creature hidden amid all the boxes, debris and dead insects. Michael assumes that he is a homeless person, but decides to look after him and gives him food. All these topics are covered from a child’s perspective therefore help children consider the feelings that may arise when someone falls ill, or they are moving in to a new house or making new friends.Skellig also offered up some great quotes. Every time now that I have a nice meal, I am going to call out, “Food of the gods!” I also loved how the strange man always wants Chinese food, 27 and 53. It reminded me of all of the times that I drove to Young’s Chinese Food. Yes, they knew who I was when I called in. Oh to not be Celiac! Nostalgia. Nostalgia. Nostalgia. Skellig won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the Hans Christian Andersen award, the Nonino International Prize, and has received an OBE for services to literature.

The family decides to name Michael's baby sister since she will now live. After considering naming her after Persephone, a deity whom Mina admires, they settle on Joy because of the joy that her living will bring the family. She finds Skellig, takes it out, and I am secretly watching her, knowing she will be in for a rare treat! So this book may have been forgettable when I was ten when I was more interested in reading Animal Ark books (Was Lion in the Larder one? Or did I make that up? I remember the titles got more and more ridiculous as the series went on), but I seriously doubt it will be forgettable now.When I was little and told to say my prayers (by hypocritical lapsed catholics, by the way) I would start by asking that my family be safe (yeah, that didn't work out so well now, did it?) and then hit the trivial things like asking that Jimmy Watts would notice me or maybe my mom could buy me the new Olivia Newton John album? Ah... to be so oblivious. I could gush over this story for another 7000 words, but I will stop - I think you can see how much I love it. My first thought after reading it was that if it had been an adult novel I would have loved it. As a novel it felt more like a very nice sketch of an interesting and magical story than what I would like from a finished book. Not that there seemed to be anything necessarily missing from the book, it just didn't seem fully flushed out, like there was more he could have done with the book to given it more depth and expanded some of the themes in even more interesting ways. Of course doing so would have made this probably not a YA novel, but rather moved him into the magical-realism worlds of someone like Jonathan Carroll or Nicholas Christopher. But that said I found this really enjoyable, but in a teasing way that made me want more of something that there was no more to have. Carnegie Winner 1998. Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 28 February 2018.