Starred Review ALA Booklist

Starred Review Throughout his storied literary life, David Almond has continuously returned to familiar themes and turned his inquiring eye to the pull of opposites. Delving more widely than the familiar question of how good stacks up against evil, he also is curious about choice versus chance, the razor-thin difference between angels and devils, and whether God is watching us, helping us, or baiting us. The Tightrope Walkers is no different, in that all these notes are hit upon. But while many of his books, beginning with Skellig (1999), are netted in magic realism, this coming-of-age story, rooted in reality, makes the stark choices its characters face ones that will be readily recognized by readers. Dominic Hall is born in a hovel on the banks of the Tyne, but thanks to a postwar building boom, his family moves to a council estate, a new community that throws together people who, in previous times, might not have known one another at all. Mr. Hall is shipbuilder, doing the gritty, filthy work of soldering and fitting. Next door lives the Stroud family. The mother is not seen, only heard, singing odd songs; the father works in the shipyards as well but in an office, crisply drawing plans. Their daughter, Holly, is a wonder tistic, fearless, a faithful friend to Dominic, and the crucible for his hopes, dreams, and writings. Into the children's Eden of art and tightrope walking hobby with which they become strangely enamored ithers Vincent McAlinden, a bottom-of-the-barrel punk who often successfully hides his humanity. Yet Holly sees enough in him to paint his portrait again and again over the years, while Dom, as an early teen, is drawn to him like steel to a magnet. Vincent grooms and shapes Dom until they are shooting small animals together, kissing each other, and literally pissing on Dom's future when they break into the house of Dom's mother's employer, who has always supported his endeavors. Vincent is the story's malevolent throughline, just as the tightrope e one project Mr. Hall and Mr. Stroud have ever collaborated on the symbol for the possibilities life may offer Dom and Holly. And just like life, the story doesn't go the way you think it will. Some books stand out for their characters, others for their sense of place, and some for their stories and themes. Almond has a facility for all those elements. The two most sharply drawn characters here are Vincent, as polluted as the Tyne but a force of nature nonetheless, and, rather surprisingly, Mr. Hall. He has spent his life at the bottom, fought a war with hopes of shaping a better world for his son, and labors mightily so his family can have more. At the same time, he sees his son as soft, is baffled by Dom's writing talents, and resents the chances they offer. Sometimes readers see this through as casual a movement as the flick of a cigarette ash. Vincent, too, is well aware of Dom's abilities but less conflicted about what they mean. Dom is the personification of the unfairness of life, and there is only one thing to do about that: corrupt him. Vincent is one of those Heathcliff type of characters whose dark soul has tears through which goodness might slip, and yet events conspire to push away hope and happiness. Readers are left to wonder whether the cause is nature, nurture, or something more primeval and malevolent. The powerful ending brings Dom, Holly, and Vincent, now older teens, together once more in an epic scene of horror that is later followed by redemption. Can goodness come from evil? Does a flower grow out of the muck? The Tightrope Walkers was published in the UK as an adult book, and it could very well fit under a new adult designation. What that means in this instance is that both young people and older will find much to ponder. Teens will feel the events most viscerally e brutishness, the love, the rejections. Adults, meanwhile, will bring their own world-weary self-knowledge, which cuts in its own way. Wild and reckless, heartbreaking and hopeful is elegy on life is not to be missed.

School Library Journal Starred Review

Gr 9 Up-Dominic Hall is the son of a shipbuilder, living in modest conditions in mid-20th century England. As he grows up, he finds himself torn between two influencesthe dreamy intellectual artist girl next door and the brutal outcast boy who seems to cultivate a darker side of Dominic's nature. His coming-of-age is marked by the ramifications of his choices between the two. The Tightrope Walkers is a tour de force. Almond's gifted prose sets readers firmly in the grim, gray-skied setting of a post-World War II British town inhabited by deeply layered and well-crafted characters. The use of a thick working-class dialect for many of the protagonists yields immersive dialogue that might have been off-putting in a lesser author's hands. Dominic's development takes place among moments of overwhelming bleakness and his experiences with the redemptive powers of human connection and art. The balance between these is precarious and realistic, and the span of years encompassed by the book flies by. The novel is by turns reminiscent of classic bildungsromans such as the Billy Elliott film, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Stephen King's IT , yet it retains a distinctive heart and voice of its own. While instances of violence are eventually tempered, it is best suited for mature readers. An absolute must-have. Erinn Black Salge, Saint Peter's Prep, Jersey City, NJ

Horn Book

This brilliant novel follows Dom, a working-class boy in 1960s northern England, from ages five to seventeen. Dom forges his own values; succumbs to the lure of thug Vincent; falls in love with childhood pal Holly; discovers himself as a writer; and learns to walk a tightrope both literal and figurative. It's all unsettling emotion as Almond limns the nature of joy and rage.

Voice of Youth Advocates

Teenaged Dominic Hall is growing up as the brainy only child of a hardworking shipbuilder in Tyneside, England. Dom will likely be the first person in his family to attend university, and he and his working-class father have trouble understanding each other's worlds. Dom is in love with Holly Stroud, the ethereal neighbor girl. Not only is Holly artistic, her father works in the shipyard's office. This creates further tension for Dom's father, since Mr. Stroud comes home with his tie intactand clean. Dom desperately wants to escape his bleak background and university seems the best way out, but he becomes intrigued by the brutal misbehavior of the slightly-older Vincent McAlinden. As Dom recognizes the precarious path he treads, he begins to withdraw from McAlinden and their at-times criminal activity. Before the end of school, though, a big complication with Holly means Dom and his love may be stuck in Tyneside for good.For this coming-of-age novel, author Almond draws upon his adolescence around the shipyards of northeast England. As such, this novel takes place in a very specific place, one with a distinctive language and atmosphere. Award-winning Almond uses extensive dialogue to bring the story to life. American readers may find the difference in culture interesting once they become familiar with the unusual spellings Almond uses to render the local accent. The novel's deeply drawn characters and slow pace will attract certain readers.Anna Foote.