The Ghost's Child
By Sonya Hartnett
Published by Walker Books
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Sonya Hartnett writes enigmatic and poetic novels which are as entrancing to adult as to child readers.
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Children's Book review
The 2008 Astrid Lindgren Award winner, Sonya Hartnett writes enigmatic and poetic novels which are as entrancing to adult as to child readers.
In The Ghost’s Child, like all the best fairy tales, the moral can be applied across all times and cultures.
Relating her story as an old woman to a mysterious child visitor, Maddy describes her meeting with a strange, unworldly young man.
Tragically the demands of her intense love for him, and a conventional lifestyle, stifle him, and he leaves her following the stillbirth of their child. She seeks to find him, but then realizes they cannot thrive together, so buries her sorrow in lifelong work to help the sick.
An unsettling, life-affirming novel of great tenderness.
Illustrator: Jon McNaught
Reading age: 11+
Interest level: 11+
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