Suitabook

Tears of the Salamander

Peter Dickinson

Reading: Read alongside the child rather than predicting the uncle’s true nature. Pause after the family history and supernatural revelations to ask what Alfredo knows, fears or still needs to discover.
Themes: Inherited power and responsibility: Alfredo is told he is the next Master of the Mountain and learns about his family’s power. The story clearly places inherited authority and responsibility at its centre, but it is not clear whether this inheritance is ultimately valued, challenged or rejected.
Protection, secrecy and trust: Uncle Giorgio spirits Alfredo away to an ancestral home beneath a volcano, controls the mountain and appears increasingly frightening to him. The relationship with Giorgio is presented through uncertainty: he may be a dangerous sorcerer, while Alfredo’s understanding of him changes.
Worth knowing: Be ready for emotionally weighty material: Alfredo loses his family in a fire, then enters an ominous setting involving a volcano, alchemy, a captured fiery creature and a possibly fearsome sorcerer.