From: Maia <maia>
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 16:30:51 -0400

I too thought that Skellig was wonderful. Perhaps what I liked best about it came at the end: that Skellig said that the baby had fire (I'm paraphrasing here; I don't have the book in front of me), that it was her strength too, and not Skellig's alone, that was the catalyst for their mutual resurrection.

I wasn't surprised to find that Almond feels that Mina "[is] the most important character in the book for me," because Mina is quite splendid. I remember that some folks thought she was a stereotypical or nonindicative homeschooler, but she strikes me as very real, as does Allie (in her own raw?ged kind of way.)

Few other men have written so well about girls -- with affection but without condescension, or treating them as the "other." Yeah hurrah for Almond.

Maia


*See Almond's interview on achuka.co.uk

-maia at littlefolktales.org www.littlefolktales.org the Spirited Review: www.littlefolktales.org/reviews
Received on Thu 06 Jul 2000 03:30:51 PM CDT