Mad Times

Kit's Wilderness by David Almond

Steve and Hazel and Rosalind gave me this for my birthday so I knew it would be good. And it is. Kit Watson, aged thirteen, moves with his family back to the coal mining town where his grandfather's family had lived for generations. The mines have been shut down, but the culture of the town is still shaped by them. I can't give away too many details without treading into spoiler territory, but the book centers around Kit's experience both making friends and connecting with his family's history in the town. Kit himself is a writer, and some of the book is one of the stories he writes. It's a lovely multi-faceted gem of a book with interconnections of family and place across a scale of centuries.