Greylands
First Published:
Australia: Penguin (Puffin), 1997
UK: Penguin (Puffin), 1997 [Out of Print]
Czech Republic: One Woman Press, 1999 [current status unknown]
"You have to be careful of cracks. Sometimes they are disguised as something else. A doorway, or a smile or even a winking eye. And if you fall through them, you never know where you will end up."
Greylands is the haunting and exquisitely rendered story of Jack and his little sister, Ellen, as they struggle to cope with their father's despair in the bleak time after their mother's death. One night Jack enters the greylands – a world where there is no colour, no noise, no laughter – a place that only the wounded can enter.
It is a fable for all ages, from the acclaimed author of the Obernewtyn Chronicles and The Gathering.
***
"Greylands was inspired very much by Prague where I now live part of each year. But Greylands is not about Prague or indeed any other place. It is a state of mind. It is about endurance and surviving sorrow; it is about the need for laughter and for beauty; it is about belonging and about oppressions of many kinds, and most of all, it is about having the courage to hope."
~ Isobelle Carmody (click here)
Review/s:
"... the greylands are an unforgettable metaphor for grief, and one of the strengths of the story is its recognition of children's emotions..."
~ Gillian Rubenstein (see review)