Review: Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Our latest book review is from Jess, one of the Young Curators who has been working with us to help programme festival events:

Sometimes prize-winning books can be disappointing but Maggot Moon deserves every bit of success it’s had with the 2012 Costa Prize for Children and CILIP Carnegie medal 2013. When I originally saw the front and back covers for the book I instantly thought that it was made for children but as I started to get into the book I realised that it is actually aimed at teens.

In this book the main character Standish Treadwell has Dyslexia and different eye colours; I loved how the Dyslexia was shown as a great gift and not a disability to be cured. I thought it was a great book but at some points it was quite sad. The book showed how Standish is bullied at school as he cannot read or write and is believed to be dumb. Even though the book is about allot of depressing issues it is written in a way which makes it pleasurable to read.

Standish lives in a world which is ruled by an all controlling government called The Motherland. The Motherland’s only aims are of beating all their enemies with any means and getting a man on the moon.

I really enjoyed this book I would rate it 9/10. I thought it was very engaging and would be great for any reader. It was easy to get absorbed into and you could read it in one sitting.

The book was nothing like I expected it to be as I thought it would be young and childish but in fact it was a really nice story about Standish’s journey through an unfair society. It was compelling and just FANTASTIC!!!!

The only things I didn’t like about this book was how they jumped right into the main plot with no introduction of where it was based or any other background information. Personally I would have liked to have known more about the characters and the setting of the book. But overall I loved the story line.

Sally Gardner will be appearing at two events in this year’s Bath Children’s Literature Festival. She’ll be discussing her series for younger readers, Wings & Co, with illustrator David Roberts on Saturday 5 October at 2.30pm and don’t miss her deep in conversation with David Almond about the joys of writing later that day at 5.30pm.