Sylvia isn’t sure why she agreed to come to this tiny town in Northern England. It’s an hour or so away from her city life in
Newcastle with her best friend Maxine, bands, music, life and constant laughter, but feels like a different planet. Sylvia’s mum needs a break from her stressful job and decided that time with her paints, pencils and daughter in the town she was born in will be the place to rest.
On their first night, Sylvia wakes to an eerie tune. Musical notes floated through her dream into wakefulness. It seemed to surround her, flow through her. She chastises herself for being stupid.
On their first morning, Sylvia is a little angry. There isn’t even any cell phone coverage, let alone wifi or screens to watch something. A walk is the only thing she can think to do to calm her restlessness and frustration, and she gets her bearings in the town.
She meets a few of the locals who seem to know who she is already. There is Colin, a small boy full of chatter and cheeky questions, and an elderly man waving to those who walk by. Sylvia is shy, so doesn’t engage at first. But on more walks she meets the elderly man properly. He’s kind, giving her ancient stone tools he’s found in the moors around them. Sylvia is surprised at herself as she listens to his words of people past in the same place she is standing. It’s fascinating.
Soon she meets more folk of the town, including the maker of the music she heard the first night. She learns the instrument is a hollow bone, and the player’s name is Gabriel. He, like Sylvia’s mother is escaping something far from the friendly, peaceful town.
Spending more time with Gabriel, Sylvia can feel herself changing – from the inside out. The night stars are so clear and endless, the beauty of the countryside fills her with awe, and the spiral markings she’s found while seeking a phone signal are intriguing. Most of all, the haunting music from Gabriel’s tiny bone flute becomes mesmerising.
Her mother left the town when just a few months old, but Sylvia’s connection to it grows and grows and she feels she is being rewilded, just like the wolves and lynxes people are trying to bring back. The feeling of being weird or stupid, as she knows she would feel at home in the city, grows fainter and fainter. This town, it’s moors, forest and blanket of stars has changed her. So has Gabriel.
I had to buy a copy of Bone Music as soon as I finished another of David Arnold’s books recently. His style of ‘telling it like it is’ but with beauty, wonder and hope for our fracturing world – is astounding. Bone Music is the same.
There are two main characters, Sylvia and Gabriel. Sylvia believes she is a city girl from hair to heel, but the longer she spends in a tiny country Northern England town, the more she slows to appreciate all around her. She chastises herself at first for being weird for her changing thoughts, but a new friend helps open her mind more, even as he admits, like the world, he is a little broken too.
The openness of the townsfolk and uncomplicated way of life is a calming backdrop, even as Sylvia and Gabriel discuss serious issues in the world. The town is a grounding force, giving them a place to be, and maybe even ‘rewild’ themselves. Maybe we all need some of that?
The haunting, wind swept, eye-catching cover is the perfect packaging for such a beautiful story.
Author – David Almond
Age – 12+
(2024, Hachette, Environment, Family, Friendship, Growing up, Music, Secret, Hope, Future, Climate Change, Northern UK, Moors, Ancient Stone scrapers, Stone knives, Stone markings, Healing, Escape from city life, Rewilding, Wild, Forests)