American Library Association (2007). "2007 Best Books for Young Adults". Archived from the original on 13 February 2011 . Retrieved 3 February 2011. Sometimes the we-all-love-nature theme seemed forced. I suppose I want the information shared with me to be essential to the story. Not going a bit deeper into the characters - versus the setting - left some of them with little dimension. There were hints of dimension at times but not enough.

Polymer Clay Book for Beginners: A Step by Step Guide to

I thought it was a beautifully written book full of snippets of real life, like Sophia and the daffodil bulbs and her threadbare tea towels. I was all set to give it 5 stars until the end. It was so sad and brutal. In many ways it reminded me of Atonement, the devastation that one thing can have on so many lives.The ending is stark and sudden (which is well done as throughout the book you are drawn into feeling that nature moves so slowly at its own pace).

Clay by David Almond | Goodreads

Essentially, I think Clay takes a lot of inspiration from Frankenstein. It's about the creation of a "human" through "unnatural" means, and the responsibility required once this creature has been created. The story mirrors Frankenstein's ideas of committing crimes against humanity (i.e. breaking natural laws, such as birth), nature vs nurture, evil vs good, you name it. Davie is caught in between these two worlds, with an unknown power he is capable of to bring life to inanimate objects, one he doesn't discover until meeting Stephen Rose.The human characters are TC, a boy whose single mother largely ignores him and who is ostracised at school for being different, who seeks escape by skipping school to explore and watch the plants and animals around him. Jozef is a migrant worker who lost his small family farm in Poland to the cost of meeting EU regulations, who befriends a fighting dog owned by his employer, a shady operator specialising in house clearances. Then there is Sophia, a widow who takes a keen interest in nature, who forms a bond with her impressionable granddaughter Daisy that complicates her more distant relationship with her daughter Linda (Daisy's mother). This book was odd, but after discussing it with others, I came to really like this book. I read this book to see why it is banned in some places. I also wanted to read this book to see what the symbolism of clay was within the story. Not as good as the other two I have read (but this was her first novel I think) . I really appreciated all the nature references, especially as it describes urban 'forgotten bits' of greenery, shrubbery, brambles etc ... and then the characters that love this ares for their different reasons.

Clay: 20 fantastic projects for Make It With Air-Dry Clay: 20 fantastic projects for

The style is strangely disjointed, but in a good way. I was always aware I was reading a beautifully written book, rather than feeling immersed in the characters worlds. A story recounted rather than a ripping yarn. What to say about CLAY? I think Brent said it best: Frankenstein meets Demian, meets The Outsiders, with a twist of the old Golem story. David and his best friend Geordie have it pretty good...they steal scramental wine from the church and cigarettes from their dads. They run the neighborhood, looking out for Mouldy, the school bully. They lead a typical life, until Stephen Rose comes to town. Almond captures all the energy and awkwardness of youth. A first kiss, sneaking cigarettes, goofing around in class, growing away from a best friend—all these scenes are woven into the darker story of Stephan and Davie’s creation. Underneath it all is a childlike egoism that makes these boys feel responsible for the bad things that happen: If we wish it and it happens, then it must have happened because of us.

As we jumped from character to character (which I like), I wanted the tension to build. I wanted to feel that horrible feeling when we can predict how these worlds are going to collide and blow up. We're told at the beginning what's going to happen. In this case, the break from pure chronology failed. Some stories start with the end, and you're still enthralled. In this case, you're not. There's no tension in this story. It also failed because there's essentially nothing after that. When you're told the ending at the beginning, you expect a bit more. Otherwise, as in this case, the story is anticlimactic. When the crisis reached its climax, it seemed rushed. hornbeams, service trees, acacias and Turkey oaks with bristly acorn cups like little sea anemones. It was alive with squirrels, jays and wood mice, while in spring thrushes let off football rattles from the treetops, and every few summers stag beetles emerged to rear and fence and mate …“ Melissa Harrison's debut novel is a brilliant hybrid of fiction and nature writing centred on semi-wild spaces in a London suburb. The events of the book cover a year, broken into seasonal chapters that mix descriptions of the natural world with a cast of characters whose relationship with nature is at the heart of the story. Sophia is a 78-year-old widow, living in a small flat on a rundown estate. Her daughter would like her to move but she doesn’t want to leave the park where she and her husband spent many happy hours, because they shared a love of nature. She sees TC from her window, and she likes to see his love for the park, but she is concerned that he is always alone and sad. An over-protected child, a neglected child, a Polish immigrant and an old lady living lives of differing loneliness. They each find meaning in the nature and small animal life of a nearby park. Their lives sometimes overlap and they seem to communicate and take comfort from each other in small ways and yet this reader, at least, could not relax as an overwhelming foreboding stalked the narrative.

the Tide (Alexander Clay Series Book 6) Kindle The Turn of the Tide (Alexander Clay Series Book 6) Kindle

I read Melissa Harrison’s most recent novel All Among The Barley and was so impressed that I decided to return her earlier novels. I would recommend this book to students who are Catholic, students who enjoy art, or students who have family issues. I might also give this book to a student who has dealt with death, a mental disability or with bullying. Then again, I'm not sure if anyone else thought this, too. I only really noticed this because it was so heavily contrasted with Davie's wonderful romantic evening with Maria. Nothing else in the story is developed from this, so it wasn't exactly relevant to the plot, other than Stephen perhaps trying to alienate Davie? Still, this isn't a great message. I really didn't understand that part, and it gave me a sour taste for the rest of the book. There are definite supernatural elements in this book, but they are religious elements more than the stuff of ghost stories. As a Catholic myself, I found myself sympathizing greatly with Davie and the religious aspects of his life, and I thought the depiction of 1960s Catholicism was very well done and certainly not inaccurate or overwrought, as is sometimes the case when trying to make religion appealing to secular readers. I'm from New Zealand so I like my free stuff. I feel like a failure if I fill my plate less than four times at a buffet, and at a wedding or work Christmas party it's rare to find me with fewer than two drinks in my hands at any one time. This novel being the first Goodreads freebie I've read, I was hoping it'd be a five star gem for me. Not sure how it works - if I give a bad review will I not win free books again??

But things start getting strange, and Stephen comes between the friends as he entices Davie to join him, modeling clay into -- a person. Stephen seems to have the power of creating life from inanimate clay. While this horrifies Davie, it inspires Stephen to more and more daring feats. The novel gradually moves towards an unhappy ending with the friendships between the characters broken forever and their connection with the park lost. But there were gaps. I didn’t understand why Linda’s daughter suddenly decided that gardening would be her consuming passion. I didn’t understand what made TC’s mother so very neglectful. Questions like that bothered me. I would not teach this in my classroom. However, if I had to I would connect it to Frankenstein somehow. I do not see how you could teach this book without making a reference to God, and how Stephen and Frankenstein are somewhat taking over the role of God by creating a living being. I think this is novel is about people and their disconnect from each other. But it's a bit hard to tell.