Grounded

by Sheena Wilkinson

Overview

Declan loves Seaneen, but his ambition to work at a top showjumping yard is stronger than anything he’s ever felt before. So when Declan is offered his dream job in Germany, he should be thrilled. There’s nothing for him at home but dark history he’d rather forget. But he’s terrified: leaving Seaneen's harder than he expected; troubled hood Cian won't leave him alone, and when he finds a traumatised horse in a derelict barn, he knows he has to help her. No matter how scared he is. Grounded is a gripping story of courage, fear, despair and joy. The sequel to the award-winning author of Taking Flight can also be read as a stand-alone novel and will appeal to horse-lovers and fans of realistic, dark YA equally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908195449
Publisher:	Little Island Books
Publication date:	04/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	771 KB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Sheena Wilkinson is one of Ireland’s most acclaimed writers of fiction for young people. Star by Star (Little Island, 2017) was selected as a BookTrust Future Classic in 2018 and won the Honour Award for Fiction at the Children's Books Ireland awards 2018. Grounded (Little Island, 2012) won the Book of the Year and Children's Choice awards at the Children's Books Ireland awards 2013. A recipient of special bursaries from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for the development of her writing, Sheena is now a full time author and writing teacher. Her books have also won awards from the Reading Association of Ireland and have been placed on the IBBY Honour List.

Sheena lives in County Down in Northern Ireland, where she spends her time writing, singing, and walking in the forest thinking up more stories.

Editorial Reviews

★ 2015-06-23
Declan Kelly returns in this sequel to the Children's Books Ireland Book of the Year Taking Flight (2014). Desolate when his cousin's horse, Flight, is sold, 18-year-old Declan jumps at a chance to take a job in a top German showjumping yard. He's somewhat sorry to leave his girlfriend, Seaneen, behind but not at all reluctant to leave behind his recovering-alcoholic mother and his hardscrabble life in West Belfast council housing. Before Declan can do more than apply for a passport, Seaneen turns up pregnant. Declan gives up his chance, determined, with his head if not his heart, to do the right thing. His life, however, has never given him a clear picture of the right thing, and Seaneen grows increasingly impatient with his emotional distance. Meanwhile, Declan rescues an abandoned, badly abused mare, which gives him the perfect excuse to spend more time at the barn. A neighbor boy, Cian, reminds him of himself in his struggling pre-riding days. Declan can't fix Cian, but he tries unsuccessfully to get the boy's mother to intervene. When events come to a horrifying climax, Declan begins to understand the sort of person he wants to be. Declan's staccato first-person voice vividly conveys his confusion, desires, failures, and decency, sentence length and syntax skillfully modulating according to his mood. Wilkinson portrays complicated situations with nuanced truth and spare elegance.A talented writer and a fantastic story. (Fiction. 15 & up)

Kirkus Reviews