Catch a Falling Star
Age 9+
General Fiction
This coming-of-age story by multiple-award-winner Meg McKinlay is about loss and grief, dealing with change and fighting to hold on to what you can, while letting go of what you can’t.
It’s 1979 and the sky is falling. Skylab, that is. Somewhere high above Frankie Avery, one of the world’s first space stations is tumbling to Earth. And rushing back with it are old memories. Things twelve-year-old Frankie thought she’d forgotten. Things her mum won’t talk about, and which her little brother Newt never knew. Only ... did he? Does he? Because as Skylab circles closer, Newt starts acting strangely. And while the world watches the sky, Frankie keeps her own eyes on Newt. Because if anyone’s going to keep him safe, it’s her. It always has been. But maybe this is something bigger than splinters and spiders and sleepwalking. Maybe a space station isn’t the only thing heading straight for calamity.
Resources
Creators
Meg McKinlay is the author of eighteen books ranging from picture books and young adult fiction through to poetry for adults. Her work includes the much-loved No Bears, Once Upon A Small Rhinoceros and the critically acclaimed A Single Stone, which won the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award, among other prizes. Raised in central Victoria, in a TV- and car-free household, Meg was a bookish kid, in love with words and excited by dictionaries. A former academic at the University of Western Australia, where she taught Japanese, Literature, and Creative Writing, Meg is now a full-time writer and lives near the ocean in Fremantle, where she is always busy cooking up more books.
Reviews
A finely crafted novel that will catch the attention of teachers as well as readers aged nine and up. Highly recommended.
Books+Publishing
Catch a Falling Star is a winner. It captures the fragments of warmth and tenderness that flutter and fall through mortality’s sieve of pain. Highly recommended.
Striking Keys
Catch a Falling Star is middle grade writing at it’s very finest. McKinlay takes the reader to the highest level of emotion, but then reigns it back in, right at the point that it might venture into content too mature
Children's Books Daily
This is a moving, frequently funny, story of death and grief and joy and love set against the background of the growing panic engendered by the return of Skylab when Australians learn that Western Australia is its target. Highly recommended.
Magpies Magazine
Sometimes you read a book and are so deeply moved by the content that you must sit in silence for a while and ponder. Catch a Falling Star is one of these books… Classrooms will love this book for its varied discussion starters, and kids will love it for its honesty and insight into life. It’s a story you won’t soon forget.
Kids' Book Review
