David Almond's 2006 novel, Clay, is, like many other books by this author, a tale of boyhood in northeastern England. It's the story of a young Catholic altar boy whose priest encourages him to befriend Stephen Rose, the strange new boy in town, who was thrown out of the seminary for mysterious reasons. As Davie, the story's protagonist, spends more and more time with the newcomer, he finds that the boy possesses strange and dangerous powers, powers that enable him to create life from ordinary clay, powers which he might intend to use for ill rather than for good. What to say about CLAY? I think Brent said it best: Frankenstein meets Demian, meets The Outsiders, with a twist of the old Golem story. David and his best friend Geordie have it pretty good...they steal scramental wine from the church and cigarettes from their dads. They run the neighborhood, looking out for Mouldy, the school bully. They lead a typical life, until Stephen Rose comes to town.

Wild Clay by Matt Levy, Takuro Shibata | Waterstones

The tiny city park is a hub and a focus for many of the local residents. Sophia sees its beauty even through the litter as it is blown around in the wind. A nine year old boy, TC, is discovering the joy that nature can bring as he plays truant from school to explore and discover. Sophia’s granddaughter Daisy who lives round the corner just sees it as a place to play. And there is Jozef, a farmer from Poland, he is now clearing homes and serving at a takeaway, but still has that yearning for the forests and fields of his homeland.

The book introduces the reader to the main characters; TC comes from a broken home, his mother doesn't seem to pay much attention to him, and doesn't even realise that he is skipping school to pursue his interests in wildlife. His Dad has left home, and it is fairly clear from the dialogue that he was an abusive figure (although he is only mentioned in the book and does not appear in person). The book also introduces Jozef, who has a passion for carving animals out of wood; other characters include Daisy, a young girl, and her grandmother, Sofia, who has recently been widowed. I'm from New Zealand so I like my free stuff. I feel like a failure if I fill my plate less than four times at a buffet, and at a wedding or work Christmas party it's rare to find me with fewer than two drinks in my hands at any one time. This novel being the first Goodreads freebie I've read, I was hoping it'd be a five star gem for me. Not sure how it works - if I give a bad review will I not win free books again?? Clay is a novel that connects three people through their love of being outside and of the small space within the centre of the city, a small park and the close by common. A small boy, a seventy eight year old woman and a man who dreams of his old farm in his home land, TC, Sophia and Jozef. They all go about their own ways, spending each day as it comes, whether its TC skipping school or Sophia writing her letters to her granddaughter or even Jozef spending his time between working and the park. They all have their own troubles, their own problems in the world that they shoulder themselves, but they are all aware of each other, the little bubbles of their world moving to cross within each other every so often, TC and Jozef more often than not. The human characters are TC, a boy whose single mother largely ignores him and who is ostracised at school for being different, who seeks escape by skipping school to explore and watch the plants and animals around him. Jozef is a migrant worker who lost his small family farm in Poland to the cost of meeting EU regulations, who befriends a fighting dog owned by his employer, a shady operator specialising in house clearances. Then there is Sophia, a widow who takes a keen interest in nature, who forms a bond with her impressionable granddaughter Daisy that complicates her more distant relationship with her daughter Linda (Daisy's mother). These four people are brought together like those small whirlwinds that lift the leaves up in the air. TC and Jozef hit it off together immediately with their common love of the natural world, and Jozef takes an interest in his life and the pain TC has from his father leaving. Sophia is trying to spark an interest in nature and the wider world with her granddaughter, but her daughter has other ideas as to what her Daisy should and should not be doing. TC and Daisy occasionally climb trees and play together, but their worlds are so different. Events drift slowly on until someone watching draws the wrong conclusion about an event.

the Tide (Alexander Clay Series Book 6) Kindle The Turn of the Tide (Alexander Clay Series Book 6) Kindle

Sophia is a 78-year-old widow, living in a small flat on a rundown estate. Her daughter would like her to move but she doesn’t want to leave the park where she and her husband spent many happy hours, because they shared a love of nature. She sees TC from her window, and she likes to see his love for the park, but she is concerned that he is always alone and sad.

Melissa Harrison’s first novel weaves together a human story of four people whose lives are changed when their paths cross with the story of the seasons changing in a city centre park that those four people all love. His first children's novel, Skellig (1998), set in Newcastle, won the Whitbread Children's Novel of the Year Award and also the Carnegie Medal. His subsequent novels are: Kit's Wilderness (1999), Heaven Eyes (2000), Secret Heart (2001), The Fire Eaters (2003) and Clay (2005). His first play aimed at adolescents, Wild Girl, Wild Boy, toured in 2001 and was published in 2002. I enjoyed it up until the very end, but I hated the relentlessly brutal ending. Harrison favors "realism" over hope, which I recognize is as valid an outlook as any, so this is an emotional response.