Foxlight is my third book by Katya Balen, and it's just as wondrous as the others! The beauty of the book begins with the title--Foxlight. I can imagine it perfectly--the mixture of orange and red, neither night nor day, elusive and special. And elusive and special is exactly how the characters in the story, Fen and Rey, see their past. They can't put their finger on it. They don't know their story. They must step out and find it, even if it means venturing into the terrifying wildness. Foxlight is a search for identity and belonging. Although Fen and Rey have each other, they long for more. At the Light House, which takes in abandoned babies, everyone has a story. Everyone except them. They have nothing but a charcoal sketch of a fox from their mother. No letter, no name, nothing. So Fen creates stories and dreams of being free and wild. Rey tries to grow plants in unforgiving … [Read more...]
October, October
We live in the woods and we are wild. That's what eleven-year-old October says, over and over, about her father and her. The woman who is her mother is not like them. She isn't wild. She left them in the forest, choosing to go closer to civilisation and live with human comforts. And October cannot forgive her for it. October, October by Katya Balen is the story of a girl brought up in the wild, far away from the human world. She thrives on stories, eagerly creating one story after another about the little treasures she finds on the forest floor. Life is perfect.Until it isn't. A unique story told from the point of view of an 11-year-old girl, October, October begins slowly, but soon draws us in. Katya Balen's words bring to life every flawed character, from October herself to her parents and her new friends. As we turn the pages, we are sucked into a story about … [Read more...]
The Space We’re In
Have you ever read a review that describes a book as being “full of heart”? Katya Balen’s The Space We’re In is exactly that–a book full of heart. It bursts with love and emotion, raw and authentic. And the voice? Perfect. Ten-year-old Frank sometimes resents his brother Max. Max has changed everything with his humming and hand flapping and his meltdowns. (Frank has no idea why they’re called meltdowns, though, because there’s no melting in that rigid, furious body.) His mother has no time to paint, and she looks tired all the time. And yet, when Frank hates Max, he feels a surge of guilt, of shame. Because there’s so much to love about his little brother, about the way he shines with happiness and the way you never need to wonder what he’s feeling or thinking because he has no artifice. The Space We’re In navigates Frank’s feelings, and right through the book, I love that the … [Read more...]