Tearing At The Emotions

When The Sky Falls by Phil Earle is a powerful historical children’s novel that I absolutely loved. I was drawn into the story from the start.

The four leading characters are an unlikely combination- a twelve-year-old boy; a similar aged girl; a middle-aged lady; and a silverback gorilla. All are thrown together due to World War II.

The novel is set in London in 1941 when a young lad is sent to live with Mrs F. He arrives hurt and angry, and no one can get through his defences. “The last time he’d been at school. The laughter, the pointing fingers and humiliation. He couldn’t do it. Not again.” The fear of school is not unfounded as he meets two classroom bullies and a cruel headmaster. The reader’s heart breaks for the hurting young lad.

Everywhere he goes, people leave. He wonders “what he must have done to cause it.” The reader ‘feels’ his pain.

Encountering the London landscape after rural Yorkshire comes as a shock. “He was shocked… He’d seen photos… of the Blitz… but nothing had prepared him for the smell of it… a cloying smell of charred decay.” This is very descriptive and really sets the scene for the reader. Amid the ashes, the brave Londoners carry on.

At the heart of the novel is Adonis (we met him in Phil Earle’s book The Dawn Of Adonis set in 1911), a silverback gorilla. He is powerful, but once you earn his trust, you have it forever.