Ghostlines

Katya Balen is known for her beautiful nature writing, for making the natural world come alive and in Ghostlines she doesn’t disappoint.

The main human character in this middle grade novel is Tilda, a bold and feisty adventurer who loves her home on the island of Ayrie and the story is one of friendship, self-discovery and growing up. But the island itself is also a main character and Balen takes us into the wild, remote and beautiful countryside immersing the reader in the natural rhythms of the land, the sea and the animals who also make the island their home.

Tilda loves her home, she knows every inch of it and lives in a community that thrives in the wildness and the closeness that remote living brings. She is free and happy as she and her friends roam and play around Ayrie, enjoying the quiet that the end of the tourist season brings. A new child comes to the island and, forced to look after him and show him her home, Tilda struggles to convince him to see the beauty and the wonder that she sees in every rock and blade of grass. She goes further and further in her adventures in order to make him see her home as she does and ends up crossing a boundary that she believes no one has ever crossed before. As their relationship develops Tilda begins to understand a decision her own brother made and to understand that sometimes you need to go away in order to come home.

This is a wild and wonderful story full of daring adventures and beautifully described nature and it is also a story about learning to appreciate difference in opinion, the majesty of the natural world and the power of natural and human history.