Carnegie Medal winner.

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd is an Irish story within a story. Fergus, the main character, lives in a town bordering the Irish south and the British-occupied north. In the span of the book he discovers an ancient bog body, Mel, a young dwarf woman sacrificed in 80 A.D. to stave off the crop failure and starvation of a prolonged winter perhaps caused by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius far to the south in 79 A.D. Caught in the Troubles between his devotion to his brother Joe, a hunger-striker in Long Kesh prison, aka The Maze, and his growing friendship with Owain, a Welsh soldier in the British army who enlisted to avoid working in the Welsh mines, he finds distraction when he discovers the bog body while illegally cutting peat with his uncle Tully. While his days are occupied with running, studying for exams, and first love, at night Mel comes to him in dreams to tell him her tale of love and sacrifice. The story is a page-turner that offers insight into Irish politics and ancient Celtic culture, as well as some modern Irish slang, as Fergus’ choices lead him first down one path and then on to another as he longs to make sense of the world around him, past, present, and future. 4 stars. ( )

I read this when I was in high school and it was absolutely heart-wrenching.

That is the one thing about Dowd's writing that you have to know. It will make you care about people and then break your heart. But I loved this book, Dowd writes a really masterful, very serious book without making difficult topics inaccessible. Her characters, felt, at the time, for me, very relatable and I really felt their struggle.

Her books have always been readable, despite how dark they are. In this book we follow a protagonist called Fergus whose brother is currently undergoing a hunger strike. There's other themes, sexuality, belonging, loneliness, the isolation of adolescence all captured in this book.

As a teenager, finding books for me to read was really hard because I didn't want to read about young dystopian women who were feminists but had no female friends, respected no female characters and spent their time in a love triangle. Or a young teenaged boy at school who desperately wanted X Girl to be his girlfriend but she couldn't be because he never communicated literally anything to her.

(No disrespect meant, but when I was young I was always hungering for books that weren't so easy as the current YA ones on the market. YA was just becoming a thing and it was really light and superficial at first.)

I wanted books that treated me with respect, and Dowd's did that. ( )

I listened to this well-narrated production of this excellent book about the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, shortly after the death of Bobby Sands. Fergus McCann and his Uncle Tally come upon a body buried in a peat bog. After reporting it to the authorities, they learn that the body is that of an Iron Age woman, whom Fergus dubs "Mel," at the behest of the archaeologist who researches the find. During this time, Fergus's brother goes on hunger strike in prison, Fergus falls for the archaeologist's daughter, and he's studying to pass his exams and strike out from his small valley town.

These multiple narrative threads parallel Mel's story as Fergus dreams about her life in the 1st century C.E. The story is further complicated by Fergus's friendship with Owain, whom Fergus meets while he runs through the bog, and later as he acts a courier for a friend who has IRA sympathies. The story unfurls with surprises, frustration, and resolution. It is well written, and while I had some background about the Troubles, I don't think that a less-informed reader couldn't glean the understanding necessary to clarify and confusion.

( )

I listened to this well-narrated production of this excellent book about the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, shortly after the death of Bobby Sands. Fergus McCann and his Uncle Tally come upon a body buried in a peat bog. After reporting it to the authorities, they learn that the body is that of an Iron Age woman, whom Fergus dubs "Mel," at the behest of the archaeologist who researches the find. During this time, Fergus's brother goes on hunger strike in prison, Fergus falls for the archaeologist's daughter, and he's studying to pass his exams and strike out from his small valley town.

These multiple narrative threads parallel Mel's story as Fergus dreams about her life in the 1st century C.E. The story is further complicated by Fergus's friendship with Owain, whom Fergus meets while he runs through the bog, and later as he acts a courier for a friend who has IRA sympathies. The story unfurls with surprises, frustration, and resolution. It is well written, and while I had some background about the Troubles, I don't think that a less-informed reader couldn't glean the understanding necessary to clarify and confusion.

( )