Book Review
Title: Down to Earth by Betty Culley
Genre: Middle Grade, General Fiction, Science
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Before I jump into my review I have to say that Betty Culley has definitely become an author I will be reading more from in the future and Down to Earth changed my opinion on middle grade novels. Before reading Down to Earth I very rarely picked up middle grade books because they didn’t grip me, the writing was too simplistic and they didn’t tackle themes that I enjoyed but Down to Earth shattered all those opinions I had and it is impossible for me to express quite how much I loved this book. We are following a shy, quiet boy named Henry who comes from a long line of water witches, that was interesting to begin with as witch characters tend to be female, and it is his journey of navigating his community, family and the larger universe and finding his place within it all. Down to Earth is most definitely a book that has earnt a permanent place on my Kindle and I know I will be rereading this in the future.
One thing that really stood out to me was that Henry doesn’t have the typical experiences of other children his age as he is home schooled. I liked the authentic description of home schooling as I was briefly home schooled as a small child because I missed the intake for school and it definitely had a huge impact on me growing up as I was much more academically inclined that other children. Culley’s character work is something to be admired as all the characters feel fully formed and fleshed out so you get attached to each and every one of them. Culley definitely has a talent for portraying a large cast of characters and making each feel unique and real. On the subject of Culley’s writing the prose in Down to Earth was exquisite and I found myself annotating the book which is something I hardly ever do in order to immortalise some of most beautiful sentences that I can refer back to later.
Another thing that really stood out to me was the dialogue, in most middle grade novels and a fair amount of young adult novels the dialogue feels forced and just doesn’t fit right with the characters, Culley doesn’t have this problem. The speech patterns feel authentic as if they could be said by a real person and each character’s voice was distinct and unique. Culley definitely has a keen ear for speech patterns and dialogue habits especially with a regional and age focus which was nice to see as it meant the older characters sounded completely different to the younger characters which makes sense as speech evolves over time and the younger characters can use things like slang that the older generation wouldn’t.
Henry as a character was amazing, he was shy, kind and insightful young boy, he is also quite a deep thinker but in a way that felt completely natural for his age so it didn’t feel forced and he didn’t suffer from the problem of sounding much older than he actually was. Throughout my reading of Down to Earth I became very attached to Henry and felt extremely protective of him as he navigated some challenging situations within his community which was another thing I loved about Culley was that she wasn’t afraid to tackle some more challenging situations in a book for a younger audience.
Overall, I felt that Down to Earth was definitely a book that shattered my expectations of it and I will definitely be checking out Culley’s young adult novel in verse to see how that compares to this diamond of a book. Down to Earth is the kind of book that focuses on the everyday aspects of life and sharpens the experience to the point where even the most mundane things feel wonderful. While it is written for children and the writing reflects that I felt it can be appreciated by people of all ages and if you are hesitant to pick up a middle grade novel like I was then I’d definitely recommend Down to Earth as a starting point.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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