"The Wall had once been built to hold back the strange, voracious encroachment of the Forest, and protect the towns and cities of the plains. It had done so for a while, but eventually it had failed. The green had found weak points in the Wall and torn its way through them. Now on all sides there was Forest,
and the only place people could live was the Wall."
Feather has taken something that was so precious to her community. She is one of the older children who leave the safety of their community each day to forage in the Forest but this is no ordinary forest - it is a dangerous entity and we read about this danger very early in the story:
"Of necessity, all the rooms within the stronghold of the Wall were long and narrow, with stone floors and ceilings. The only windows were round, palm-sized panes of clouded rock crystal, currently letting in the early morning light. Already those on broom duty were sweeping the floors in case tiny seeds had been brought in by accident."
Think about the story fragments in these three sentences. The word 'wall' has a capital letter - Wall - and it is stronghold. The way the windows are described reinforce this feeling of living in a fortress. Then we read the strangest idea which is implied by the sweeping - that seeds could be dangerous.
This idea is reinforced by the word placement in this sentence: "she could already smell the heady, insidious green scents of the Forest, like the breath of some great beast."
The inhabitants of this place have developed ways to collect dew in funnels, tend to beehives, create bird traps, and even use metal. The community are sure they are the only ones left living in the Wall, but Feather discovers this is not true when she encounters a stranger.
On this day Feather prepares to go outside. Her clothes give further hints about possible danger -
"her outdoor clothes coloured stone-grey and pale lichen-yellow for camouflage. She pulled on her tough gloves, the feather cap which stopped her scalp getting sunburnt and her squirrel-leather boots with cleft toes for climbing. ... fastening her tool-belt and hanging her gather- bag and climbing gear over one shoulder." (The audio sample includes this quote).
Feather takes her pet ferret Sleek with her. He is wild animal but he does have some loyalty to Feather and more than once on her journey he is able to alert her to danger. Feather does not go foraging, she goes back to meet the stranger who is called Merildun. He has promised to show her how to make maps but instead he does the most unthinkable and dreadful thing:
"She was opening her mouth to ask a question when a violent shove in the back knocked the breath out of her. She pitched forward into nothingness, and fell."
Feather survives but now she has to track this man. He has stolen something very precious. Feather steps into the unknown and follows the Wall making the most amazing discoveries along the way but also experiencing huge dangers.
At the beginning of this book you will have NO IDEA what is going on - and I love that. Frances Hardinge is making you, the reader, work hard to join together fragments of this story. Who are these people? Why do they fear the forest? Are their strange names significant - Feather, Ember and Cherry. Feather is the main character and she is leaving the safety of her home on the Wall. Why do they live inside the top of a very high wall? Everything feels so dangerous right from the beginning. In one scene Feather sleeps inside the empty carapace of a huge beetle - so along with the Forest itself there are also dangerous animals, reptiles and insects to contend with.
"The human mind is a very strange thing, it can get used to anything, even continual moral peril."
If you love reading children's books as much as I do, then you really should believe me and RUSH out and grab this book - it blew me away. If you teach a Grade Four or Five class this could be a splendid read aloud - not to study, not to dissect, just to share and enjoy. I love the words used by The Horn Book that this is a quasi-post-apocalyptic story. I feel deeply privileged to be able to read and experience a book like The Forest of a Thousand Eyes.
Publisher blurb: The hungry Forest is moving forward like an army, a green and constant threat to the humans living in and on an increasingly crumbling Wall. Feather, accompanied only by her scaled ferret, Sleek, must avoid the Forest's tentacles, and the many dangerous creatures it shelters, to return the community's precious spyglass to its rightful place. Along the way, she develops her resilience, and meets other people living on the Wall, whose stories and experiences open her mind, and those of her community, to new horizons.
In a scant 128 pages, Hardinge immerses readers in a world of dangers and wonders, where nature isn’t neutral but actively hostile, waging an eternal war against the few remaining humans. ... Sumptuous worldbuilding and deft plotting make for a harrowing dystopian story that nevertheless thrums with hope. Kirkus Star review
The message about caring for others and building community is well-crafted, and the quick pace of the adventure along with the evocative illustrations will make readers want to devour this book in one sitting. The Story Sanctuary
(An) atmospheric tale told through Hardinge’s skillful fairy-tale prose and Gravett’s art, which intertwines, illuminates, and sometimes takes over pages altogether. ... Softly shaded illustrations emphasize the natural world’s overwhelming magnitude to Feather, sometimes in close-up views of insects and birds; sometimes opening out to expansive vistas; sometimes dissolving into impressionistic flecks of light and greenery. Horn Book
Read some more review quotes here.
Here is the US cover:
I am now very keen to read this book by Frances Hardinge also illustrated by Emily Gravett:
Frances Hardinge spent a large part of her childhood in a huge old house that inspired her to write strange stories from an early age. She read English at Oxford University, then got a job at a software company. However, a few years later a persistent friend finally managed to bully Frances into sending a few chapters of Fly By Night, her first children's novel, to a publisher. Macmillan made her an immediate offer. The book went on to publish to huge critical acclaim and win the Branford Boase First Novel Award. She has since written many highly acclaimed children's novels including, Fly By Night's sequel, Twilight Robbery, as well as the Carnegie shortlisted Cuckoo Song and the Costa Book of the Year winner, The Lie Tree.
Fly by Night was published in 2006 and I know we had a copy in my former school library and I am fairly sure I did read it but I had not started this blog back then and so I don't have a written record of my thoughts or the plot.
Emily Gravett has a rare talent for creating exceptional books for children. The winner of two CILIP Kate Greenaway Medals, her skill and wit are second to none. Emily first sprang into the limelight with the ground-breaking Wolves, which has been followed by such modern classics as Meerkat Mail, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears, Monkey and Me and Again! and the fabulous Bear and Hare series for younger readers, as well as the beautiful Tidy, Old Hat, Cyril and Pat and Meerkat Christmas. Each book is unique and different from the last – and each features endearing, beautifully drawn characters that touch the heart and tickle the funny bone. Emily lives in Brighton with her family.
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