David Almond

David Almond (1951) is one of the best known English children and young adult authors, one of three British authors to win the Hans Christian Andersen Award (in 2010). His debut, the children’s novel Skellig, published in 1998, received widespread recognition and coverage and was named the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year. Skellig is a strange creature, perhaps a homeless person, perhaps an angel, who lives in the garage of the new home of ten-year-old Michael. He is arthritic, and devours aspirin, Chinese takeout and beer. In addition to Skellig, two more books by Almond have been published in Estonian – The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas (2012) and My Name Is Mina (2010). The latter is a prequel to Skellig that centres on Michael’s friend Mina, a strange girl who likes to stay up at night and climb trees. The book is fascinating as it is in the form of Mina’s diary, and her thought games and fantasies sometimes take centre stage instead of the plot. The character of Mina allows Almond to contemplate normalcy – what is it really? Does it even exist? This is a good reason to also recommend Almond’s books to adults. David Almond makes several appearances at festival HeadRead: on Friday 26 May at 10 am he will give a talk at the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre, on the same day at 4 pm he will join Davide Cali and Indrek Koff for a discussion at the Estonian Writers’ Union.