COUNTING STARS
David Almond
Dell Laurel-Leaf
Nonfiction/Short Stories
ISBN: 0440418267
240 pages

• Read an Excerpt

David Almond is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including the marvelous SKELLIG, about things with wings; the mysterious KIT'S WILDERNESS, about things deep underground; and the peculiar HEAVEN'S EYES, about runaway orphans finding family in the presence of a simple, innocent girl. Almond's books are filled with metaphysical darkness and mystery. If anyone has ever wondered where his ideas come from, COUNTING STARS provides clues as it is a collection of short stories based on his boyhood growing up Catholic in northern England.

One in a large family of siblings, Almond experienced several debilitating blows early in life. The loss of a sister haunts the book, along with the untimely death of his father. These events lend a melancholy tone to COUNTING STARS. Readers of his other work will recognize the mines, the spirits of lost loved ones and a village simpleton, who claims to see visions of the Virgin Mary.

COUNTING STARS is darker than Almond's previous books. It is possible that some readers may be upset or confused by stories that have disturbing themes beyond death and displacement. One story, "The Baby," is about the village seamstress who keeps an aborted fetus sealed in a jar. Another, "Loosa Fine," is about a mentally and emotionally disturbed girl who claims to see visions of the Virgin Mary and is sold as a prostitute by one of her guardians. This story is made more disturbing by the similarities Loosa has, especially in her speech patterns, to the character called Heaven's Eyes in Almond's book of the same title.

However, COUNTING STARS also has several stories that sparkle with light and whim amidst the darkness. "The Subtle Body" uses the young protagonist's interest in transcendental meditation and the metaphor of astral body projection to describe the feeling of a first kiss. "Where Your Wings Were" describes a boy's dreams of buxom angels who carry him to heaven to hear the sound of God snoring. These stories encompass the lighter side of a cosmology of things unseen.

The pieces in meditate on memory, innocence and loss. Almond's tone of personal and spiritual exploration puts this book in the company of classics like A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce and Ray Bradbury's idyllic elegy to growing up in small town America, DANDELION WINE.

Well-written and poignant, COUNTING STARS is not for everyone but would certainly interest those who are curious about the battery of Almond's work and who are ready to, in his own words, "listen to the stories, that for an impossible afternoon hold back the coming of dark."

   --- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood

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