LoveReading4Kids Says
May 2023 Book of the Month | Reading Age 8+ Interested Age 9+
One for reluctant readers who might just discover the pleasures of fiction through being swept into a succinct and thrilling modern ghost story with real-world resonance. With a compulsively rhythmic style, and much empathy, Hilary McKay’s Jodie is unpredictable, and moving with it.
From the opening pages, we become immersed in Jodie’s perspective: “Some people are talkers, but I’m a listener. I never tell anyone anything”. She’s also a loner, recently moved to a new school as a result of a host of family problems.
The action kicks off in the context of a field trip to a salt marsh: “Imagine mud – cold sea mud. Watery mud, reflecting the sky. Ancient mud”. With her favourite teacher unable to make the trip, Jodie wishes she’d stayed at home, not least when she feels excluded by the other girls in her dorm.
Feeling more left out than usual, Jodie walks to the marsh in pursuit of a dog. Then, when she’s trapped by the tide, remarkable things happen, ultimately revealing that loneliness isn’t permanent. It’s possible to find friendship with people who, like you, are “interesting and different”.
Joanne Owen
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Jodie Synopsis
Trapped and alone on the salt marshes, Jodie is troubled by a haunting presence in this eerily atmospheric ghost story from multi-award-winning author Hilary McKay.
Jodie never wanted to come on the residential trip to the field centre. A loner at school, she's forced into a dormitory with other girls from her class who don't understand her and talk about her behind her back. Even though they're not trying to be mean, Jodie feels excluded and miserable, and eventually escapes out onto the salt marshes in search of a little dog she can hear barking in the distance. But the salt marshes are dangerous and Jodie gets trapped by the incoming tide. Stuck in the sucking mud, will anyone even notice that she's gone? And where is the little dog that keeps barking so mournfully ...?
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781800902206 |
| Publication date: |
18th May 2023 |
| Author: |
Hilary McKay |
| Illustrator: |
Keith Robinson |
| Publisher: |
Barrington Stoke Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
97 pages |
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Hilary McKay Press Reviews
'Superbly chilling, brilliantly satisfying. A masterpiece of a modern-day ghost story.' - Emma Carroll
'[Hilary McKay] has an unerring sense of children's dialogue and behaviour ... A ghost story with a difference' - Berlie Doherty
'A hugely satisfying story about real loneliness, real friendship and a real ghost ... Beautifully unpredictable.' - Lissa Evans
About Hilary McKay
Hilary McKay won the Costa Children's Book Award for The Skylarks' War, the Guardian Fiction Prize for The Exiles, and the Smarties and the Whitbread Award for The Exiles in Love and Saffy's Angel respectively. Hilary McKay's Fairy Tales was her first book with Macmillan Children's Books and is a critically acclaimed collection of clever retellings.
You can read her character Rose Casson's blog by clicking here - and Rose's tweets on the right hand side of this page.
Q & A with Hilary McKay
What is your earliest childhood memory?
Watching steam trains with my grandfather. He died before I was two years
old, so that is a very early memory.
If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?
Well, who could turn down the gift of flight? Or travel without luggage? Or a
life spent following the sun? Without doubt, I would be a swallow. I realise this
means a lifetime of eating flies, but I think it would be worth it.
What is your dream holiday destination?
I would start at the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico and travel South
through Central America, along the coast to Peru, then down through Chile
across to the Falklands and on to Antarctica, which I would circumnavigate.
Then I would travel North to New Zealand where I would spend a long time
warming up and then across to Australia. I would spend quite a long time in
Sydney and go up into the Blue Mountains (I might go sapphire hunting there)
and then to the Great Barrier Reef (of course).
That would be far enough for me.
What is your morning routine?
Alas, I do not have a morning routine.
If you could have one special talent, what would it be?
Singing, undoubtedly. That would make me the happiest. But I have a friend
whose talent is languages and I envy that one very much.
Likes: Millions of things! Books, cats, honey, letters from readers (hint, hint), real music, apples, swimming in cold water, chocolate coated ginger biscuits, trees.
Dislikes: Putting things away, litter, loud TV, hot rooms, being told what to think.
3 words that best descibe me: Untidy, happy, hopeful!
A Secret that not many people know: I am a VERY slow reader!
More About Hilary McKay
