This book was about a boy named Joe Maloney and how he was not made for this world and how he was so much different than everybody else. One day a circus comes to town and Joe goes over to see what its like. As doing so Joe sees a beautiful girl named and realizes that he has fallen in love with her. When Joe goes to sleep that night as done he is watched by a lion in his dream. Joe realizes that he is more at home more than he has every been before. I thought that this was a very well done book that i would recommend to children of all ages. This book was definitely a book that you could read over and over again to anybody.

Joe Maloney is a dreamer, a shy stutterer whose mother works shifts at a bar and whose father "spun the waltzer at a fair." His teachers want him to study, but he can't. His former friend, Stanny Mole, has fallen in with a ruthless creep called Joff, and wants to show Joe how to kill -- but Joe doesn't want to. And he sees visions of a tiger prowling around, but there are no tigers where he lives.

He makes his way to the circus, which is due to shut down in a few days. There he meets an enormous wrestler, an old woman who sees into people's souls -- and Corinna, an acrobat with whom he shares a mysterious bond. These strange people will help him learn how to find his way around the people who taunt and try to mold him, and about the tiger inside him.

This may be Almond's most confusing book. It starts off in a rather colorless way, except for the interludes where Joe sees the tiger. Almond's stark prose becomes much more flowery halfway through, when Joe meets up with the circus people; it lends itself to a few genuinely nauseating interludes where we see the sort of killing that Joff urges boys to do, claiming that it will make men out of them. But there's no hamhanded moralizing in this book, thankfully. The last third is very surreal, very strange and otherworldly, but those who don't demand a concrete answer for everything in a book will be fine with that. The biggest problem is that at times it gets a little repetitive, with people shouting the same insults after Joe and Corinna, and Joe wondering for the umpteenth time whether Joff is his father.

Joe is likeable from the start, a kid who doesn't really fit anywhere and who feels pressure from all sides to be something he isn't. His patient mother is an almost saintly figure; the circus performers range from the surreal to the everyday, but all are friendly and kind, especially the blind old lady Nanty. Corinna is somewhat like Joe, except more outgoing and less sensitive to the taunts of others. And if there's a villain, it's Joff, a murdering tough who tries to mold boys to be like him, including Joe's friend Stanny (who pretty clearly doesn't believe a word coming out of his own mouth).

This is not a book for everyone -- the boundaries are very hazy and the storyline stretches into fantasy. But it's beautifully written and strangely plotted, and definitely worth the read.

It would be difficult not to recommend a book by David Almond. His lyrical writing creates fresh perspectives, thought-provoking storylines, and intriguing characterizations. While Secret Heart doesn't capture the heart of the reader with the same intensity of Skellig or Kit's Wilderness, the imagery and beauty of the language is compelling enough to recommend this book.