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Nobody knows where Barkbelly came from. He just dropped from the sky one day, a polished wooden egg. Then one day the egg was put onto a fire, and out he popped: a wooden boy of phenomenal strength. Adopted by Pumpkin and Gable, Barkbelly grows quickly, and is soon accepted by the village. But then one day catastrophe strikes: one of Barkbelly's schoolmates is killed, and Barkbelly is to blame. He must run for his life before the villagers turn on him. His journey takes him through an amazing land where he meets many strange and wonderful people. Ultimately he learns the awful truth about his people € and about his birth family, who might not be all that he had dreamed of, after all.
There is an appealing dream-like quality to storyteller Cat Weatherill's writing (Barkbelly is her first novel), and even though her fantasy world never felt quite real to me, the story's energy and emotion soon won me over. Weatherill's imagination is fresh and boundless, and her writing is simply inspired in places ¨ several times she had me grinding my teeth with envy over her knack for inventive, perfect description.
While at first glance Barkbelly appears deceptively light, there is at times an almost disturbing dark edge. Weatherill doesn't shy away from difficult issues such as murder, rejection, prejudice, etc. The physical world might not always feel real, but the emotional one ¨ the heart of the story ¨ hits close to home. An imaginative, intriguing read, sure to appeal to children of around nine and upwards.
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