Heaven Eyes

David Almond's Heaven Eyes is a haunting river adventure for 11 year olds about three runaways who drift into a place that doesn't seem quite real.

What happens

Erin Law and her friends January Carr and Mouse Gullane live at Whitegates, a home for children who've lost their parents. They're old hands at running off. Usually it's a few hours of freedom before hunger or rain sends them back.

This time January has built a raft. Three old doors nailed to planks, varnished and everything! One Friday evening they drag it to the quay, drop it into the river and jump on.

It's thrilling and terrifying at once. The current spins them out past the lights of the city into thick mist. Then the raft sticks fast in black, stinking mud and starts to sink.

On the other side of that mud they meet a pale girl with webbed fingers and a strange sing-song voice. "Is you my sister?" she asks Erin. She's Heaven Eyes. She lives in a crumbling old printing works with a man she calls Grampa, who first turns up with a shovel and suggests digging the children back into the mud.

Can they trust him? January certainly doesn't.

Reading it feels a bit like a dream you can't quite shake off. Erin tells the story herself, in short, simple sentences, and she believes completely in things other people would call impossible. She feels her mum's hand on her shoulder. She wonders if Wilson's clay figures really move.

Heaven Eyes herself is the heart of it. She speaks in a way all her own ("Such lovely lovelies") and sees joy where other people see only darkness.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is an intense read. Erin's mum died of an illness when Erin was ten, and her memories of the hospital come early on. One boy at Whitegates almost died at the hands of his parents. There's swearing ("bloody" and plenty of cursing), and a moment in the mud where Erin nearly lets herself sink to be with her mum.

That could be a lot for a sensitive reader, or one who has lost a parent. For a thoughtful reader who likes stories that are strange and beautiful and a little bit sad, it could be the one they remember for years.

What to read next

If they fall for David Almond's way of making the everyday magical, try The Tale of Angelino Brown. A grumpy bus driver called Bert reaches into his jacket pocket and finds a very small angel in there.