This is a beautifully vivid and magical modern fairytale. Ten-year-old Silver has lived her life on a slope, tied onto her mother with a length of rope to prevent her from falling off the cliff. When the inevitable happens and her mother dies, Silver is taken in by blind Mr Pew, the mysterious and miraculously old keeper of a lighthouse. Learning from him the stories of Babel Dark, a nineteenth-century clergyman, Silver, develops a map through her own darkness, into her own story, and, finally, into the light of love. This is a wonderfully rich book, full of witty, vivid and slightly surreal description and commentary on the transforming power of storytelling.