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YA
Billy grows up locked away with his mother by his philandering priest father. Outside is Blinkbonny, a bombed-out town on Britain's northeast coast. When his father disappears, Billy emerges as "the Aynjel Childe," a medium. Almond's earthy mysticism is made potent by uneducated Billy's poetic imagination and phonetic spelling in the text ("The pensil wanders across the payper lyk a little beest creepin hoaplesly across the rubbl...").
Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
March, 2014