When the Sky Falls by Phil Earle

Challenge #20 ~ “A fiction or non-fiction book set during 1900-1950.”

whenthesky

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

My opinion in three sentences:

This was a strong book and I did enjoy it, but it is sadly up against some stiff competition for the Carnegie Medal this year and is not among my favourites. Earle delivers an emotional, respectful and enthralling story, that cannot be denied, but at times I think the book lost focus on its central idea and at those times it was easy to lose interest. With such a hard-hitting and page-turner of an ending, however, it’s a challenge to look back on the book and think of anything too negative to say about it.

(Without spoiling anything) the best bit:

Earle’s writing was absolutely beautiful from the get go and some of the best writing I’ve seen in middle grade fiction for a while. Landscapes (by and large) were vividly created and the sense of both place and atmosphere was undeniable. Sadly, as the plot emerged and suspense kicked up, this did dwindle, but many of the settings were so strong I can picture them even now.

A warning for the book:

The USP of this book is its focus on the zoo and what happened in such locations during the Second World War. However, this was by far the weakest of the locations in the book for both physical and atmospheric identity, and actually was overshadowed by many other plotlines. The story we get is very different to that we are sold from the cover and blurb, and whilst that’s not necessarily a negative thing in general, I think that it made this book weaker overall. I wanted a strong exploration of the impacts of war in such a location with the other themes of relocation and family bonds that Earle threw in along the way, but it just didn’t quite deliver on that front for me.

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