The Savage

The Savage by David Almond is a story about a boy whose father dies, and, in order to deal with the pain of losing his father, he begins to write about this savage kid that lives out in the woods and dances through our lives only to be completely ignored as just something that they imagined. After the dad dies, the boy starts getting picked on by the neighborhood bully, Hopper. To deal with it, he sends the savage to kill Hopper, only to realize that he couldn't do it, even in a story. He proceeds to have the savage beat the crap out of Hopper. The next day, when he sees the boy, he notices that he was beaten up pretty bad, just like he had written, and then he tells Hopper that he sent the savage to beat him up. Almond does a great job with this story. In a way I feel like I can identify with the young boy and the savage. I also have to say the reason I loved this book was the great illustrations by Dave McKean--my favorite being of the savage on the back of a pig. Truly a wonderful book and I highly recommend it for everyone. Reviewed by Thomas Rojek

This is a strange combination of picture book and novel for older readers that is unsettling at best. A young boy's fantasy, the story and the illustrations are both filled with raw emotions that border on frightening and reflects the main character's own experiences and feelings. Blue's counselor advises him to try writing down his feelings to help deal with the pain of his father's death, but that really doesn't work very well. Then Blue starts to write a story about a wild child who lives in the woods and who, on occasion, kills and eats people. His story tells about the savage child interacting with Blue and his sister, and how the Savage hates the boy, Hopper, that bullies Blue at school. McKean's illustrations show a wild child who is bony and shirtless, armed with a knife. Blue begins to believe that the Savage may be real, since he is sure there is evidence that the Savage visits him while he sleeps. The idea that what you write becomes real is not a new one, and when the bully, Hopper, receives a beating in his bedroom during the night, Blue is sure that his fantasy has become reality. Almost a graphic novel, THE SAVAGE is filled with fast action, suspense, and characters that are realistic. It is an exciting story that should appeal to the imagination of reluctant readers, too. Don't we all have a bit of the Savage lurking somewhere just beneath the surface? Reviewed by: Grandma Bev

By all logic, the melding of Dave McKean to David Almond should be a bad idea. David Almond tends to write YA novels with adult sensibilities gnawing away at their cores (and I include "My Dad's A Birdman" in that gross generalization). Dave McKean for his own part is a fan of creating adult centered graphic novels ("Sandman" most notably) and picture books with mature looks and feels ("The Wolves in the Walls", "The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish", etc.). So it stands to reason that if you combined the two together you would end up with something that a child wouldn't have a chance at enjoying or understanding. It would have to be something nightmare inducing, to say the least. Yet my encounter with "The Savage" came as a bit of a surprise to me. As feared it definitely has a slightly older readership, but the darkness of the images and the text work together in ways that actually reduce the scary factor rather than increase it. I wouldn't go about handing the book to a five-year-old but for the canny child of eleven or twelve, "The Savage" is a wild untamed release of instinct and pain. The kind of thing a lot of adults wouldn't trust a child to understand. The kind of thing a kid could appreciate (and understand) for sure. Blue's father is dead so his school counselor tells him to write down his feelings to deal with the pain. "I did try for a while, but it just seemed stupid, and it even made me feel worse," so another idea presents itself to him. Without fully comprehending why, Blue starts writing about a savage kid who lives on his own in the nearby Burgess Woods. When Blue is bullied by a boy named Hopper he writes about the savage seeing and loathing the kid. When Blue is with his little sister he writes passages where they interact with The Savage, if only from a distance. Yet as Blue writes more and more, he comes to feel that the Savage is more than just words on a page. And when an incident with Hopper comes to light, Blue comes to respect his creation, though it is up to the reader to decide how much they themselves believe in his existence. The idea that what you write becomes real has been made most famous by books like Cornelia Funke's "Inkheart" series. But there has always been a fear on the part of humankind that words could carry this power. Almond touches on this fear. If you could create a living breathing danger by simply writing about it, would you? Blue's anger and resentment at his own father's death and at the threat of the bully Hopper come to life in his Savage. Psychologically this could be seen as pretty healthy, but then that old "is this a reliable narrator" question comes up. Did the Savage really beat up Hopper in his bed? Or was that actually Blue, possessed by the creature of his own making? Some kids will be inclined to take Almond at his word. A small few, however, will not be so sure. For my own part, I have an inexplicable urge to bite people when they start lamenting