A Monster Calls

This fiction book took me a while to get in to. I had previously watched a film adaptation, so I kept imagining the actors from that when I was reading the story. It is a very emotive book, dealing with terminal illness and death of a parent, looked at from a child's perspective. As an adult I could read between the lines that what I was being told was only the child's point of view and may not be totally true, and I'm not sure how easily children would understand this without help. I found the 'character' of the yew tree quite challenging at first, but came to admire its honesty. I would recommend this to someone dealing with the loss / imminent loss of a close relative.

Goodness, just finished reading this book - very raw & emotional but very readable too - it really wasn’t what I imagined when I first looked it out… 💕

Am incredibly powerful sorry covering fear, loss and anger.

quie scary

A MONSTER CALLS by PATRICK NESS
This is a wonderfully written story of magic and monsters.
As well as it being a monster story it also goes through the boy's mother's cancer treatment. Determind to save his mother he calls the monster who tells him three storys wich teach him three different lessons. I would recommend this novella to almost anyone.
Ages: 9+
Read if you like:
-Fantasy
-Magic
-Monsters
-Bullying
-Sadness

An amazing read! I have not read a book that is so powerful and emotional as this in a long time. It is brilliantly written and sensitively handles the subject of sickness and death. I was hoping it may suitable for Year Sixes but I think ideally children need to be a little older or emotionally mature.

A full-on heart-wrencher. I had to pull my boys in for a hug afterwards

A beautiful book about love, loss and most of all hope. A great read for 7 -11 year olds.

Fiction.
This book gets me every time and, although I can’t imagine teaching it, I recommend it to my KS3 students at every opportunity.

It’s a true classic.

At the start it was a bit scary but the way my teacher told us was funny and we loved hearing the story.

A very emotional book with some relevant themes, . I liked the main character in the story and felt sorry for him because he was bullied and his mum was very poorly.

I tore through this book in one sitting. It was such a gripping read and so thought-provoking. My heart broke for Conor throughout the story with all of the different events that happened to him. His journey is representative of the mental health struggles that people face every day. I think this book is an essential reading text for older children - so powerful!

I think the book was ok, but the end wasn't happy. If you are looking for a scary book then don't choose this one because it's not scary either.

This novel I managed to read quite quickly, I kept reading on, to try understanding why the monster had appeared and the truth Connor was keeping to himself. The story focused on highly emotional situations and complicated relationships with thoughts and feelings experienced during different life scenarios. Ideal novel to read with a class to open a conversation about trauma and dealing with anger, frustration and confusion.

A beautiful, fantastic, heartwarming story about the challenges of dealing with having a terminally ill parent.

This novel I managed to read quite quickly, I kept reading on to try understand why the monster had appeared and the truth Connor was keeping to himself. The story focused on highly emotional situations and complicated relationships with thoughts and feelings experienced during different life scenarios. Ideal novel to read with a class to open a conversation about trauma and dealing with anger, frustration and confusion.

The way Ness managed to captivate the emotions of Conor and his grief was very interesting. I found that it was very insightful to see the way that it could impact someone so young and the way he dealt with his emotions. Also, I feel this novel would be good to discuss the ways people deal with trauma and to see what they thought Conors truth would be before finding out.

This book is really good and i will recomend it to any young readers

A beautifully written story that’s full of emotion, A Monster Calls is a lovely book made with passion. One of the best books in English literature, this book really spike out to me

Hi! Personally I found this book kinda scary! I would probably recommend this book for perhaps 10-14 year olds as some of the words can be quite confusing to younger children!

A beautiful written book about Love,Hope,Loss and Family.
I love it!!
I hope you do!

It was quite an emotional read. The book had a good plot and allows the reader to really understand and get to know Connor. It tells the reader the effects of having a loved one who is suffering from cancer and explains how life is a big journey. There is no tricky vocabulary and the wording is quite simple. Overall it is a very good book.

A beautiful story, wonderfully told as an audio book on YouTube. Poignant, thoughtful and made me laugh and cry. Very highly recommended.

I enjoyed reading this book because it gave me a sense of understanding to the main character, Connor, and that even children have problems taht they face which always need to be considered. I like how strong-willed his mother was and as much as her death at the end was a sort of closure for Connor and I was expecting it throughout the story, I couldn't help but be disappointed that she passed away.

I would recommend this book to someone else because it's a fictional story but people all around the world go through these things so it's a big eye opener. People that don't have this situation could learn a lesson; people who do have this kind of situation can find a sense of comfort that there are others that know the feeling; people that might be a bully like the character in the story might better themselves.

So beautiful. But also sad, haunting and painful. The story of a boy and his life, dealing with his other having a terminal illness. It is a difficult read at times, especially towards the end. I read this to my son and he had to read the last two pages to me, as I was crying too much to read! A very difficult subject to portray, but done with such sensitivity and seen through the boy's eyes, I felt everything that he felt, and the mystical, ethereal elements in it, which could have been clunky, were very real and drove the narrative to its final scenes. Highly recommend.

Heartbreaking! It is an amazingly written book that portrays grief in a beautiful and easy to understand way. I think it would be an amazing way to open up a conversation about death and dealing with emotions. I thought it was very powerful how the book portrayed the Grandmother as 'evil' (which she wasn't) because Conor knew that she would be his only family at the end and he thought he would betraying his mother and didn't want to think he could be happy without her. The only thing I find more incredible then the story is how it came to be and you can feel the authors emotion within each word.

An amazing book, beautifully written.
A book about fear, anger, love and loss. Conor's mum is seriously ill and Conor has had the same dream every night. Tonight however, a different monster comes to his window. He's come to make Conor speak his truth.
Would recommend for 12 years + but mainly because it's so heart-breakingly sad.

Very good! I studied this book for my year 7 English and found it very fun, creepy and exciting!

A heartbreaking exploration of grief, love and loss experienced through the eyes of a child. Brave, raw and honest.

Beautifully written. Super easy to follow. Love the way that grief is introduced to make it understandable for younger audiences.