New Book Alert: A Kite at The Edge of The World by Katy Grant; Moving, Beautiful, and Lyrical Juvenile Book About Youth, Death, and Summer Days That Never End

New Book Alert: A Kite at The Edge of The World by Katy Grant; Moving, Beautiful, and Lyrical Juvenile Book About Youth, Death, and Summer Days That Never End

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews



PopSugar Reading Challenge: A bildungsroman




Spoilers: We all remember when we were kids. The best friends that we made just by being at the right place at the right time, on the swing set at the playground, in line on the first day at school, or sitting next to you in class. We remember the summer days that seemed to never end. When life was all about the next game, the next imaginative adventure, the next trip to the movies or the library, or the next ice cream cone or frozen popsicle. The sun seemed brighter, the sky seemed bluer, and the days always seemed better. Nothing could bother us and we could live forever.


That magic is captured in A Kite at the Edge of the World, Katy Grant's beautiful and lyrical juvenile novel about those days. It's a simple story about two young boys meeting during a summer vacation and spending their days having fun, going to the beach, and flying kites. Children, about ages 8-12 will love the kids and their friendship and adventures and how they use their imagination to have fun and get out of trouble (As a bonus, the book includes instructions, so children will learn how to make a kite.)

But there is a sad wistfulness throughout the writing that adults will understand. Similar to another children's book that I reviewed, The Voyage of Gethsarade by M.G. Claybrook, this could almost be considered a children's book with an adult audience in mind. However, unlike Gethsarade which is an edgy satire of heroification, what will appeal to the adults in this book is the longing nostalgia of those days. The desire of the narrator to relive those days and bottle them up now that he is older and weighed down with maturity. The children reading the book haven't yet reached that longing (one hopes) but the adults reading it to them have.


The unnamed Narrator is an old man who is nearing the end of his life and thinks back to the best day of his life. It happened when he was a boy and on holiday with his parents. Grant's lyrical description gives her writing an almost poetic feel, as though describing an Impressionist seascape painting. As an old man, The Narrator recalls the sights and sounds of that beach: "Rows of little wooden cottages painted white with roofs with red shingles. A great many wooden boardwalks. The lovely thumping sound they made under bare feet-despite the very real danger of splinters. Along the boardwalks, decks with wooden chairs, also white. Tables shaded by blue striped umbrellas. An occasional gazebo.

But mostly sea, and sky, and sand. The turquoise sea, the azure sky, the buff sand. The salty taste of the breeze. And the smell of fish, not unpleasant in the sea air. Dots of white on the ocean where the waves peaked. The sky-a blue suffused with sunlight-expansive, endless. Sands glittering white at noon, tawny at sunset, shapeshifting. Sea and sky and sand all meeting at the confluence of that little white seaside village."


While playing on the seashore, The Narrator makes a new friend Ilio. Ilio is brave, adventurous….and dying. Ilio is very ill and it is clear that his illness is taking its toll on his body, but he is determined to make the most of the little time that he has and that includes receiving a new best friend.


The first item on the friendship itinerary is to fly a kite. The Narrator has a book that gives detailed instructions on how to make a kite, unfortunately they don't have the money to purchase some of the things that are needed. No matter, the ever resourceful Ilio says, we'll find some. So the Dynamic Duo go through the seaside town looking for loose change under the boardwalk, inside the Penny Arcade, and a water fountain. (They make sure that when they take the coins from the fountain, they make a wish that the person's wish will come true so they don't deprive anyone of a wish.) During their journey to get money and to buy supplies, Ilio shows off a feisty charming nature. He is feisty when he is ready to fight a bully for their money and charming when he shares details of their adventures to sympathetic adults. His exuberant mental state belies his physical weakened body, which is revealed whenever he has to stop for a breather.


When the two finally get their kite in the air, it is a sight to behold, a splash of various colors in the blue sky. The moment enchants the adults on the beach as they watch the kite dance along the air. The boys imagine what it would be like to let it go and allow it to fly forever into the sky. The boy's musings contemplate the existence of many things. The Narrator wonders: "If all the words that had ever been spoken by all the people who had ever lived were floating around the Earth above us. If that was true, was there some way to hear them? Like the way Ilio imagined others might see our kite? Once a thing like a kite or a word was gone from you, was that the end of it? Or was it a part of you forever?

.....I felt like the kite was a part of me, and it was there, but here I was, far below it, standing on the beach. Only this string from the general store kept us together.

And yet-how could that be? Was I the kite? Was the kite me? And what about Ilio? Was he the kite, too? We're he and I connected forever?"

These words suggest the transience of things how objects like kites as well as people don't last forever. Like that beautiful kite in the air or words like "I love you" or "You are my best friend" can disappear and float along. Eventually, they disappear. Objects get destroyed. Words are said and forgotten. Bodies die. But our memories are what last. Those things are still there as long as we are there to think about them and remember how they made us feel.

The kite flying ends what The Narrator describes as the best day of his life. His friendship continues even as Ilio's health gets progressively worse. The two still spend time together, building a sand castle that they know won't last and swimming just so Ilio can exert himself. (In his cheeky way, when an observer points out Ilio could have drowned, he answers "But I didn't.")

A particularly touching moment occurs when The Narrator tells a bed-ridden Ilio a story from his own imagination. With Ilio's prodding, The Narrator tells his friend a story about a boy's adventure at sea. Through his words, he gives his best friend an adventure that he can experience in his imagination, if not in reality. (The Narrator's recall of every detail of this story suggests that he too never got to have his adventures either, but his gift for imagination continued into old age and remains a soothing balm through an adult life of responsibility, stability, sameness, and tedium.)


A Kite at the Edge of the World is a true tear jerker and even the hardest of hearts will sniffle a little by the end. The Narrator realizes that even though Ilio did not live long, he left an impact on his life that allowed him to examine love and life and to be grateful for those moments even if they last only for a little while.