Thornhill

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Told in alternating, interwoven plotlines—Mary’s through intimate diary entries and Ella’s in bold, striking art—Pam Smy’s Thornhill is a haunting exploration of human connection, filled with suspense. The story is divided into diary extracts and stunning illustrations which I really enjoyed and thought worked wonderfully in this graphic novel medium. We follow a girl called Mary Baines in 1982 who is an orphan at Thornhill and writes about her sad times at the house which involves a lot of bullying from another girl. We are also introduced to a girl called Ella who is from the present and has just moved in to a new house with her father (who is always absent because he is at work). From her bedroom window she can see the old dilapidated ruin which was formerly Thornhill and she often sees an outline of a girl and lights on in the house. so, yeah - the story is rough, the artwork is uneven, but it's definitely not a waste of time. i just thought this was going to be one of those I LOVE YOU books, and it didn't work out that way. I like the noise of being surrounded by a group. It’s as though there are little stories whizzing around—dreams of pop groups and boyfriends, gossip about eyeliner and shoes and teachers. I don’t have to join in, but still I feel part of their gang—on the edges looking in, watching, listening, but happy to be included.”

And then comes Ella's turn. I really didn't see this coming but Ella also dies too :/ She finally gets into Thornhill and we see her with another figure who we suspect to be Mary but then lightning strikes and the house goes up in flames, consuming her. Told in both a wordless graphic novel & prose, THORNHILL is a story I couldn't wait to be done with. Combining the past (1982) with the present, THORNHILL revolves around Mary, a quiet girl living at the orphanage waiting to be adopted. Unfortunately, having selective mutism along with her hobby of puppet-making, makes her misunderstood, leading her to be one of the last girls at the home. Besides Mary, there's "her"- a nasty bully who brings so much mental distress that Mary stays in her room for days at a time. Of course none of the adults in her life (save for one exception) make any attempt to help her out & Mary is left with the decision to speak up or take matters into her own hands.

I can supply all publishers, for all subjects and these include SSP's Phonics, Library, Accelerated Reader, book banded books and whole class set text. Basically, any book or teaching resource with an ISBN . . . Enjoyable graphic - all done in pen and ink. Tells two stories at once. One in pictures alone and one in words. Both stories are about young girls and loneliness. One about bullying and one about catching the past. i just don’t understood the story overall. there seemed to be something “off” throughout, to characters and their motivations. kathleen seems to be genuinely concerned about mary, but then she’s all - hooray, a cruise 4 me!, sending a doctor as a consolation prize but surely knowing that mary isn’t suddenly going to break her vow of silence for some strange man. and jane and pete merrily going on their way, leaving troubled and straight-up vicious little girls all alone? etc etc. The date for the entry and the preferred colour ink must be stated – anything else relating to the inscription such as an emblem or other artwork, is optional.

Thornhill es el nombre del orfanato donde vive Mary en 1982, una niña que vive en la absoluta soledad y crueldad pues sufre bullying constante. Esta es una niña callada, tranquila, que no molesta a nadie y que crea arte a través de sus manos (hace muñecos de barro y los caracteriza). Mary is an orphan at the Thornhill Institute for Children at the very moment that it's closing down for good. But when a bully goes too far, Mary's revenge will have a lasting effect on the bully, on Mary, and on Thornhill itself.

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I bought Thornhill after I saw it on one of my favourite booktube channels :) and the person who read it raved about it so I thought I would give it a go...and I was richly rewarded with an intriguing, atmospheric and very haunting read. It's likely that Ella's character/storyline wasn't intended for a similar weightage, but that is what I wanted from the book anyway and that is what hindered my enjoyment to some degree.

Es ahí cuando apagas el televisor y te acomodas en tu sillón de lectura. Es ahí cuando frunces el ceño y te planteas que la trama que estás leyendo esta empezando a rumiarte por dentro. Es ahí cuando empieza a afectarte las bromas, críticas, desprecios y desgracias que está padeciendo una protagonista con la que te sientes identificado en todo momento. Y es ahí cuando, ya con tus defensas bajadas, el silencio que te rodea empieza a jugarte malas pasadas. In 1982 a girl called Mary is living in Thornhill, a troubled and largely un-governed orphanage; it is her diary we are reading, and uncomfortable reading it is. It tells us a story of intense psychological bullying, the sort inflicted by irrepairably damaged children that goes unnoticed by adults. Anyone who has had experience of bullying at school knows full-well that children can be cruel, adults can be both stupid and disbelieving, and that damaged people actively and furtively seek out possibilities to damage other people. Through her diary we watch the tragic story of Mary progress. She seeks peace by creating beautiful creatures; with infinite care and attention she makes little dolls, finely-crafted little figures, often characters from her favourite books. To the rest of the world she utters not a word, Mary is a selective mute. as a designed physical object, it’s impressive. it’s solid and heavy and fits nicely in the hand, the cover is subtly embossed and the cover image is seductively spooky. all good things. it’s also a breeze of a read, as half of the story is sequential art and the other half is diary entries. oddly enough, the portion without words takes longer to ‘read,’ because you wanna absorb the details and look for additional clues. but being pretty and fast isn’t everything, as many high school girls learn soon enough, and this one doesn't have lasting appeal. also like high school girls, this is for a younger-than-me audience, so keep that in mind, but i had a few complaints. Como he dicho, la edición es maravillosa pero lo veo más enfocado a un público juvenil. Tiene pocos personajes y la historia es muy fácil de seguir.Thornhill tells us two stories, one story we know solely by the words written into a diary; the other we read entirely in images; the two stories are set three decades apart and, pulled together through time by the threatening presence of a building; the stories touch at moments before colliding at the end. It is perfectly possible to read each story separately – which I did.; I read the book as one story first and then read it again as two stories. Pam Smy nos regala una emotiva historia con el acompañamiento mediante imágenes perfecto y acorde con el tono melancólico y triste que desprenden sus páginas.