I can not wait until David Almond's Clay is published in the U.S. The reviews have just been stunning in the U.K. It is one of three children's novels this fall that have received universally glowing reviews. (The other two are Helen Dunmore's Ingo and Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness.)
Benedicte Page interviews Almond for the Independent today. It's a fascinating interview focusing primarily on Almond's influences, geographical, religious, and literary. Here's a taste:
- "The novel was an opportunity to mingle Almond's own private mythology with other, older ones. 'The idea of clay is something that keeps cropping up in my books; it seems to me that there's something very basic and fundamental about working with the earth, making stuff from it,' he says."
