Hachette Children’s Group and de Freston to publish first illustrated edition of Skellig

Artist de Freston’s illustrative debut, Julia and the Shark, written by Kiran Milwood Hargrave and published by Orion Children’s, was selected as Waterstones Children’s Gift of the Year in 2021.

Skellig will be published by Hodder Children’s Books, an imprint of Hachette Children’s Group, on 3rd August 2023 in hardback and e-book.

The story follows Michael, a young boy whose move to a new house and baby sister’s illness leave him lonely and uncertain. One Sunday afternoon, he stumbles into the ramshackle garage of his new home, and finds something magical. A strange creature who needs Michael’s help if he is to survive.

Almond said: “The story of Skellig came out of the blue. I had no plan nor plot, but once I began to write, it had a life of its own. It has many links with my own life. It’s set in the house in Newcastle in which I was living at the time. It draws on elements of my own childhood: like Michael, I had a poorly baby sister when I was young; and like Skellig, my mother suffered badly with arthritis. But I never really knew where the story had come from, where it was going, how it would end. At times it almost seemed to write itself. The ways of the imagination are mysterious.

“The writing was a journey of exploration and discovery. Even now, 25 years on, I continue to discover where its roots might be, and what it might be about. The story has continued to shift and grow. It has become a stage play, a movie, a radio play and an opera. And now here it is in a new incarnation, with Tom de Freston’s stunning artwork. It’s so exciting to see this book illustrated for the first time. Skellig is known around the world. Everywhere I go, people of all ages tell me how this tale has touched their minds and hearts, and how deeply they have been affected by it.”

“Skellig had a great impact on my own life. Since Skellig, I have written many more novels, stories, picture books, songs, opera librettos, plays. It released me to become the writer I was meant to be.”

Tom de Freston said: “Skellig has been living in the dusty, dark, expansive spaces of readers’ imaginations for 25 years. It is a book of rare magic, full of wonder and complex psychological landscapes. To make artwork for this book is a risk, as the last thing a reader wants is for the images to steal the Skellig each of us has created. So I approached it with the spirit of trying to open the gaps further, to lean into the ambiguities. It is a deep honour to be given this responsibility, and I hope I have not in any way locked down a reader’s own version, but rather expanded the architecture of the spaces they might enter.”

Rachel Wade, editorial director at Hachette Children’s Group, said it had been “our privilege and delight to publish Skellig for almost 25 years: long enough that a whole new generation of parents who discovered it at the time are now buying it for their own children”.

She continued: “Skellig has never before been published in an illustrated edition, and we could not be more excited by the inspiring collaboration between David Almond and Tom de Freston. It gives us a moment to celebrate this joyful book, which feels as fresh now as the day it was published.”