Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner


What if the football hadn’t gone over the wall? What if Hector had never gone looking for it? What if he hadn’t kept the dark secrets to himself? What if…

Then I suppose I would be telling myself another story. You see, the ‘what if’s’ are as boundless as the stars.

I am not a person prone to jealous fits, I like to think of myself as living on a fairly even keel but Sally Gardner made me jealous!

Not because she is a fantastic author and a lovely person (she is!) but because she has taken a complex concept (alternate earth, a moon landing conpsiracy theory and a Britain without anything that made it great – except the courage and determination of a boy who missed his friend) and then told the story using simple, accessible language and made a beautiful, haunting story!

Maggot Moon is perfect! I have never said that about a book before – and it is possible that I may never say it again.

If, before I had read it, someone had said to me, “Hey you know that book by Sally Gardner the one with the kid with two different coloured eyes looking out from the cover and a ladder stretching from his head to a moon writhing with maggots, um… Maggot Moon – well that book is perfect!”

I probably would not have believed them. I would have picked up the book and read it much like I hope that you do once you have finished reading this review – find a copy and read it! It might make you smile, it may make you cry but it will make you think!

Narrated in an alternate Britain against the desperate race to the moon, Maggot Moon is a complex story, simply told, by Standish Treadwell (Can’t read, can’t write. Standish Treadwell isn’t bright.) a boy with a dyslexia, in a Britain where the disabled are locked away with dissidents and other non-people that have earned the displeasure of the state.

With his best friend missing, a moon man in his basement and a potential opportunity to escape, Standish must make a choice and possibly find out the truth about what is happening on the other side of the wall.

Exciting
Thought-provoking
Heartbreaking

Perfect!

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