The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke

Kirsty Applebaum's The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke is a strange and tender story for 10 year olds about a boy who can pull dying creatures back to life.

What happens

Lonny's a lifeling. When something nearby is dying, he feels a buzzing in his teeth and his tongue. If he touches it, the life flows out of his fingers and into the rabbit or the moth or the hen.

There's a catch, of course. Every bit of life he gives away comes off his own. His voice gets deeper, his arms get longer, and he's already taller than his dad. Give a little, lose a little.

So the Quickes keep out of sight, deep in the forest. There's Dad, who mends pocket watches, little brother Midge in his backwards yellow cap, and Grandad, who bangs his stick on the floor and bellows for his cuppa (he's very funny). Nobody from the town of Farstoke is supposed to know Lonny exists.

Then a fox gets into the chickens. A row over their mum's old photo album ends with Dad's two nearly finished watches smashed across the workshop floor. Dad takes to his bed, the food runs out, and Lonny does the one thing he's always been told not to do. He heads for Farstoke.

Lonny tells it himself in short, breathless lines, and you can practically hear the buzzing get louder. He's grumpy and proud and quite unfair to Midge, who he calls a snitch. But underneath all that is a boy who misses a mum he can hardly remember.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Animals die in this one. Lonny feels every hen dying at once when the fox gets in, and there's blood and a pile of mauled birds carried off into the trees. Their mum died when Midge was born, and Lonny tells Midge it's his fault. That's backstory, not a twist, but it's said out loud in a horrible moment.

If your reader gets upset about animals being hurt, those early chapters might be a lot. If they like a story that's a bit odd and a bit sad and full of heart, they'll be hooked. Who wouldn't want to know what happens to a boy who's running out of time?

What to read next

If they're after another world where grown-ups teach children to fear outsiders, try The Middler. Maggie lives in a town that chants shame on the wanderers beyond its boundary every school morning, and as the middle child she never wins anything (the eldests always do).