A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls is a low fantasy novel written for children by Patrick Ness "from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd", illustrated by Jim Kay, and published by Walker in 2011. Set in present-day England, it features a boy who struggles to cope with the consequences of his mother's terminal cancer; he is repeatedly visited in the middle of the night by a monster who tells stories. Dowd suffered from terminal cancer herself when she started the story and died before she could write it.

Patrick Ness and illustrator Kay won the Carnegie Medal and the Greenaway Medal in 2012, the "year's best" children's literary awards by the British librarians (CILIP). A Monster Calls is the only book whose author and illustrator, whether two persons or one, have won both Medals.

Initial release: October 21, 2016 (USA)

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Adapted from: A Monster Calls

Music composed by: Fernando Velázquez

Cinematography: Óscar Faura

The story opens with 13-year-old Conor O'Malley waking from the same nightmare he has been experiencing for the past few months, "the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming". At seven minutes after midnight (12:07), a voice calls to him from outside his bedroom window, which overlooks an old church and its graveyard and is sheltered by a yew tree. Walking to the window, Conor meets the monster, a towering mass of branches and leaves in human shape. The monster insists that Conor summoned it, and that it will help Conor by telling him three short stories. In exchange Conor must tell his own story afterward.

The monster continues to meet Conor, almost always at 12:07 am, to tell its stories. Between its tales, which aim to demonstrate the complications inherent in humans, it is revealed that Conor's mother is undergoing chemotherapy and has been afflicted with cancer for the past few months. His father is nowhere to console him, and a cold relationship with his grandmother provides no comfort either. Conor is a victim of bullying at school and he has distanced himself from all other social contact. As the story progresses, his mother's condition worsens.

Conor's encounters with the monster have escalating consequences. While the first story has no real impact on Conor's life, the second story leads to being blamed for the monster vandalising his grandmother's living room, and the third leads to physically assaulting Harry, the school bully, after brief possession by the monster.

When he is forced to tell his own nightmare, however, Conor finally begins to confront his feelings. Ultimately the monster comforts him, revealing that its purpose has been to heal him. The novel closes with Conor accepting his mother's imminent death and the changes it will bring to his life. At 12:07, his mother dies in the hospital.

Awards

Ness and Kay won the Carnegie and Greenaway Medals for writing and illustration, recognising the year's best work published in the UK.The double win alone is unprecedented in more than fifty years since the illustration award was established. A Monster Calls also won the British Children's Book of the Year, voted by an "academy of 750 book industry experts"; the Red House Children's Book Award, overall, a national award voted by British children; and the Kitschies Red Tentacle award for speculative fiction, best novel published in the UK.In the U.S., the American Library Association magazine Booklist named it the "Top of the List" for 2011 youth fiction.

Daily newspapers including The Independent,Chicago Sun-Times, and The Wall Street Journal named it to year-end "Best" lists.