When the Sky Falls, by Phil Earle

When the Sky Falls, by Phil Earle  (April 5th 2022 in the US by Bloomsbury Children's Books, June 2021 in the UK), is a moving book about a boy battered by life, and further traumatized by World War II.  

When we first meet 12-year old Joseph he's a kid arriving in London during the blitz; unlike the other young travelers at the station who are being evacuated out of the city, he's been sent into it after his grandmother decides she can no longer cope with him.  He's been packed off to stay with an old friend of hers, Mrs. F., who doesn't really want Joseph either.  Joseph is violently furious at his situation, and at the world, and before the reader knows his story, his frightening anger makes it hard to warm to him.

Mrs. F. is strong enough, though, to compel Joseph to some degree of cooperation, setting him to work helping keep up her family's zoo.  It's not much of a zoo anymore, thanks to the war.  Most of the animals have been shipped off to other zoos, or died.  One of the few left is a gorilla, Adonis.  Joseph finds Adonis terrifying at first, but as he sees the love Mrs. F. has for him, and learns that Adonis is grieving for the lost of his mate and his child, he opens himself to empathy and caring.  

School is a torment (again, his extremely reluctant attendance is a testament to Mrs. F.'s strong will), where his dyslexia keeps him from being able to read (he, and all the teachers he's had throughout his life, who have convinced him he's stupid, don't know it's dyslexia), and other boys make his life miserable. When the boys climb the zoo's fence to come beat him up, one gets too close to Adonis' cage, and the gorilla grabs him by the jacket.  Although the boy isn't physically harmed, he could well have been, and his father wants Adonis killed because of being a danger to the community.

Indeed, every night there's an air raid, which is most nights, Mrs. F. sits outside Adonis' cage with a gun to shoot him if he's ever freed by an explosion, because of the threat a free, angry gorilla would pose.....even though she loves him. (This part is based on a true story).

Gradually we learn details of Joseph's past--how his mother abandoned the family when he was five, and how his father went to war. Gradually Joseph becomes able to accept help, both from Mrs. F. (espeically when she's found the strength to share her own past tragedy with him) and from a girl who's just been orphaned by a bomb; neither will give up on him.  But it is his growing bond with Adonis that helps him most.  Part of it is the warmth of growing trust, that makes Jacob feel like a person worthy of trust.  I'm wondering a bit as well, though it's never stated, if Jacob gets a bit of help with anger management from the dreadful possibility of what Adonis, with no control over his own anger, is capable of.  The book is thought provoking like this, which I appreciated.

In any event, I found their relationship nicely convincing; I'd been afraid that my suspension of disbelief re human/primate friendships was going to be put to the test.  I needn't have worried; it was a plausible relationship, not a sentimentally idealized anthropomorphic one.  

There is not a happy ending.  But though it is sad, it is an ending that give hope for a new beginning, as Mrs. F. and Joseph become family. 

It's a grimly vivid picture of life in a city being destroyed, with a protagonist on the verge of destroying his own life.  When I reached the end, it took me a while to shake of the tension of it all; like all really good and engrossing books, I'd been living it.  A truly powerful read.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher