Sophie Gee

teenager and being totally destroyed at the ending but i for me reading at this time this is not a book without hope i had a very different experience of it so i'm going to read the part that for me contains the hope and you know one of the many things that's brilliant about the book is that it doesn't put the hope at the end it puts the hope actually all the way through because what we see in billy is this character who just will not be vanquished and one of the reasons he won't be vanquished is that he's actually still kind of a petty criminal like he does still chop yeah

from the guy who's giving him his job as a paper boy.

He does steal milk.

You know, he does smoke at school.

He does lie and play truant and stuff like that.

He's not a goody two-shoes at all.

So that's one way that Billy has this indomitable spirit.

But the other part of it is his capacity to not just see what's beautiful but see what's hopeful about the process of having this relationship with the birds.

So there's this really beautiful scene where Mr Farthing, the English teacher,

comes and watches him fly his kestrel at lunchtime, which is when, or dinnertime, as they say in Yorkshire, which is when Billy takes Kess out to have his flying.

And at the end of this incredible display where Billy shows his complete mastery over this bird, but the bird shows Kess

his mastery of the air and the prey and his mastery of the currents and movement and so on.

The English teacher says it was just unbelievable.

I don't mean anything to do with the beauty of its flight.

That's marvellous.

I mean, well, when it flies, there's something about it that makes you feel strange.

And Billy says, I think I know what you mean, sir.

You mean everything seems to go dead quiet.

And they agree that they speak really quietly when they're around the hawk.

And