A Monster Calls
A Monster Calls is Patrick Ness's 2011 novel, written from a final unfinished outline left by the children's author Siobhan Dowd, who died of breast cancer in 2007 before she could write the book herself. Conor O'Malley is thirteen and lives in a small house in the north of England with his mother, who has been undergoing increasingly desperate cancer treatments. His father has remarried and moved to Florida. His grandmother, whom he does not like, is beginning to come around more often. At seven minutes past midnight, on a night not long after the latest treatment has failed, a vast humanoid figure made of yew leaves and bark walks down from the cemetery on the hill, leans in at his bedroom window, and tells him it has come to tell him three true stories. When the three are finished, Conor will tell the fourth, which is the truth he has been trying not to know. Jim Kay's black-and-white illustrations, integrated throughout, won the book the rare double of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals.
Themes & atmosphere
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What you might want to know about A Monster Calls
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Just past midnight, a yew tree monster comes walking to a thirteen year old's window. It promises three stories. In return it wants the truth he has been carrying about his ill mother.
A Monster Calls is published as a middle-grade and YA crossover, recommended for readers 11 and up. The themes of grief and a parent's terminal illness are heavy. Many adults read it as well, and the illustrations by Jim Kay add to the impact.
Yes. J.A. Bayona directed a 2016 film adaptation starring Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, and Liam Neeson as the monster. Patrick Ness wrote the screenplay. The film is a faithful and emotionally powerful adaptation.
A Monster Calls was written by Patrick Ness, published in 2011 by Mondadori.
A Monster Calls is 224 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, A Monster Calls takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
A Monster Calls is a standalone novel by Patrick Ness, not part of a series.
A Monster Calls is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.