The Night Sky in My Head

Written by Sarah Hammond

            

Selected by our Editorial Experts

Shortlisted for the 2013 Leeds Book Award - July 2012 Debut of the Month. This is a stunning debut, perfect for fans of Skellig and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Mikey Baxter isn't like other 14 year old boys. Since an accident he's had a remarkable gift to go back in time and see things differently. Everyone else believes he's damaged. Just may be he can find out the truth of his dad's disappearance before the past starts to repeat itself. The Night Sky in My Head is a novel full of light and dark, magic and truth. It will stay with you long after you have read the last page.

A Review by Katy Poulter, age 12

The Night Sky in my Head was a lot better than I expected, it was the last book I read on the shortlist because it just didn’t look inviting but when I started reading, it was really interesting and I sort of ‘got it’ from the start and I really enjoyed it. I liked the way that Mikey was so obviously different and how he explained everything in a simplistic and childlike way and I completely understood him from the beginning. I really felt that, behind his problems, he was intelligent but it frustrated him when he couldn’t express himself properly and I think it takes a lot of skill to create a character that people can view in this way and see the layers of their personality. I liked the idea of the Backwards and how it pulls him under and only stops bugging him when he has seen all it wants him to see. I would have liked there to be a little bit more to the ending as I think it all ended a bit suddenly but I liked the sly twist of whether what he saw was the Backwards or the Forwards.

Katy Poulter is a member of the Lovereading4kids Reader Review Panel but she has reviewed this novel in the first instance for the Leeds Book Award as it is one of the 2013 shortlisted titles. The organisers have kindly agreed to let us also make use of Katy's review.