The appeal of Skellig lies in the commonality of the setting and characters. Michael could be any boy; his school, any school; his friends, anyone's friends; his home and neighborhood, anyone's home and neighborhood; his hopes and fears, anyone's.

Skellig opens in a shabby house on Falconer Road in a town that could be anywhere in England. The house is a fixer-upper purchased as a new beginning for Michael, his parents, and his baby sister who is born prematurely. The house has a toilet installed in the dining room since the previous tenant, an elderly man, did not have the energy to venture far to the bathroom. At the edge of the property is a crumbling garage Michael is warned to stay away from until it can be inspected. It is crammed full of discarded bits of previous tenants' lives, cobwebs, dust, and the corpses of mice, bluebottle...