A Monster Calls
First edition cover
|
|
| Author | Patrick Ness |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Jim Kay |
| Cover artist | Kay |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Walker Books |
|
Publication date
|
5 May 2011 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 214 pp (first edition) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 754586643 |
| LC Class | PZ7.N43843 Mok 2011 |
A Monster Calls is a low fantasy novel written for children by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, illustrated by Jim Kay, and published by Walker in 2011. Set in present-day England, it features a boy who struggles to cope with the consequences of his mother's terminal cancer; he is repeatedly visited in the middle of the night by a monster who tells stories. Dowd was terminally ill with cancer herself when she started the story and died before she could write it.
Patrick Ness and illustrator Kay won the Carnegie Medal and the Greenaway Medal in 2012, the "year's best" children's literary awards by the British librarians (CILIP). A Monster Calls is the only book whose author and illustrator, whether two persons or one, have won both Medals.
A film adaptation, directed by J. A. Bayona and written for the screen by Ness himself, was released in 2016.
Siobhan Dowd conceived the novel during her own terminal illness. She discussed it and contracted to write it with editor Denise Johnstone-Burt at Walker Books, who also worked with Patrick Ness. After Dowd's death in August 2007, Walker arranged for Ness to write the story. Later, Walker and Ness arranged for Jim Kay to illustrate it, but Ness and Kay did not meet until after it was published in May 2011.
After winning the Carnegie, Ness discussed the writing with The Guardian newspaper:
Kay was selected based on illustrating one scene, solicited by art director Ben Norland:
Thirteen-year-old Conor O'Malley waking from the same nightmare he has been experiencing for the past few months, "the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming".
At seven minutes after midnight (12:07), a voice calls to him from outside his bedroom window, which overlooks an old church and its graveyard sheltered by a yew tree. Walking to the window, Conor meets the monster who called, a towering mass of branches and leaves formed in a human shape from the yew tree. The monster is intrigued that Conor is not afraid of it and insists that Conor summoned it. The monster claims to be a version of the green man and warns that it will tell Conor three true stories, after which Conor must tell a story of his own, and if it is not true, the monster will eat him.
...
Wikipedia