What’s A Song for Ella Grey about?
Claire and her best friend, Ella Grey, are ordinary kids from ordinary families in an ordinary world. They’re part of a close bunch of young people, growing up together in the street and schools of Tyneside. They fall in and out of love, play music and dance, stare at the stars, yearn for excitement, and have parties on the beautiful beaches of Northumberland. One day a stranger, a musician called Orpheus, appears on the beach, and entrances them all. Where has he come from? From the wild hills of the North, from the sea, from some mythic past? Ella Grey is the one who falls furthest, fastest, and Orpheus falls for her. Their love is stronger and stranger than anything these young people have known before. Claire tells the tale as she sees her friend drawn into a love that leads her to the shores of Death and beyond. Was Ella’s death destined form the very start? Is it possible to bring her back again? Can Orpheus sing his lost love back to life? It’s a tale of modern teenagers and ancient forces, a tale told since the dawn of time and told again today.
Now watch this
Other things to do:
- Read an interview with David Almond by Millennium Riot Readers
- Listen to David Almond and Oliver Jeffers talking about their book The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas
- Read David’s tale of the Seven Stories, the National Children’s Centre for Books in Newcastle
And now… write your review!
The Guardian young critics competition is for all young readers to share their views on any of the longlisted books. Anyone aged 18 or under can enter by writing a review of no more than 500 words of one of the books longlisted for the prize. Individuals or school/library classes/bookgroups can enter and there are great prizes to be won including all the longlisted books and being invited to the books party of the year, the Guardian children’s fiction prize award ceremony in November. You can find out more and enter the competition here.
You can find out more about all the authors on the Guardian children’s fiction prize book club page links and info will be added as they go live, one author a week for eight weeks!
