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Growing up in a sleepy coal-mining town, Bobby Burns is exposed to all manner of wondrous things: stars reflecting off the icy sea, a friend who can heal injured fawns with her dreams, a man who eats fire. But lately, darkness is approaching Bobby's world from all sides . . . ... Read more

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This is a celebration of human rights.To commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Walker Books and Amnesty International have joined together to create a short-story collection for young adults, celebrating what it means to be free. Hosting a variety of talented children's authors from all around the globe, the anthology embraces such themes as asylum, law, education and faith in a way that will both inspire and entertain. ... Read more

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Joe lives with his mother in Helmouth, a forgotten village crumbling on the edge of the suburbs. His days are spent trying to evade the demands of school and the taunts of the local bullies. Joe's friend, Stanny, insists that Joe must toughen up, become a survivor - and he is adamant that a weekend in the wilderness with Stanny and his Uncle Joff will do the trick. Into Joe's unhappy world comes Hackenschmidt's Circus, and with it the strangely familiar Corinna. She tells Joe, 'In the circus there is a secret heart' - a place of contained wildness where the barriers between the human and animal world are fluid. And indeed, Joe's dreams are already stalked by a tiger, so real that his skin and its pelt begin to feel as one... ... Read more

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Children should love to experience Kate's magical freedom as she changes into a cat and roams the countryside, free to become anyone and do anything, while the moon looks down from the sky, and everyone else is fast asleep. ... Read more

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Hodder Literature: a new and exciting series of literature titles for Key Stage 3 for whole class use. It's 1962 and Bobby Burns is bracing himself for the beginning of term. Not only is he starting at the cheerless grammar school but his dad is mysteriously ill and the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens to trigger off nuclear war -- things are changing in his sleepy Keely Bay. But then he's got his friends to help him, all fearless in their own ways: his old friends, tough guy Joseph Connor and the wonder-working Ailsa Spink; and his new ones, Bohemian Daniel Gower and the fire-eating street performer McNulty. With thoughts of power, pain, death, war and friendship swimming around in his head, Bobby must come to terms with both injustice and hope at home, school and in the world outside of Keely Bay. ... Read more

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Twelve-year-old Michael has just moved house. His babysister is seriously ill. Michael discovers an angel, Skellig, who is bad-tempered and eats Chinese takeaways. Over time Skellig mysteriously helps Michael's sister to be restored to health. This novel challenges the boundaries of reality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Skellig Reveiw
Such imagery. Never been anything like it and there never will be. Very good choice of read especially for children from 10-13. My class loved it. ... Read more

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A long hot summer A wild boy An abandoned baby An act of violence Every summer Liam and Max roam the wild countryside of Northumberland -- but this year things are different. One hot summer's day a jackdaw leads the two boys into an ancient farm house where they find a baby, wrapped in a blanket, with a scribbled note pinned to it: PLESE LOOK AFTER HER RITE. THIS IS A CHILDE OF GOD. And so begins Jackdaw Summer. A summer when friendships are tested. A summer when lines between good and bad are blurred. A summer that Liam will never forget ...A stunning novel from the author of the modern children's classic Skellig - winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award. ... Read more

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Join a young girl and her dad as they find their wings and take to the skies in a joyful, quirky, tender tale from a masterful author and illustrator.

In a rainy town in the north of England, there are strange goings-on. Dad is building a pair of wings, eating flies, and feathering his nest. Auntie Doreen is getting cross and making dumplings. Contest barker Mr. Poop is parading the streets shouting louder and louder, and even Mr. Mint, the headmaster, is not quite himself. And watching it all is Lizzie, missing her mam and looking after Dad by letting him follow his newfound whimsy. From an inspired creative pairing comes a story of the Great Human Bird Competition — a poignant, exuberant tale of the healing power of flights of fancy, and a very special father-and-daughter bond. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Amazing book
This book is hilarious on the surface, and, underneath, is the most beautiful description of grief that I've ever seen.

joy from the ashes of grief
Lizzie's a bright, independent girl who gets her self up in the morning, gets dressed, makes tea and toast, and calls her dad down to breakfast. But dad drags. Dad droops. And when asked what his plans are for the day while she's at school dad announces that he's going to fly like a bird and enter the human bird competition. Suddenly we are faced with a role reversal of a responsible parent-like child and a child-like parent. What would cause this reversal only becomes obvious by the lack, and no mention of, Lizzie's mother. This is made clear a few chapters in when Lizzie's Aunt Doreen drops by to see to how Lizzie and her dad are getting along. Once she sees that dad has fashioned a set of wings for himself and has taken to eating bugs (in order to be more bird-like), and that Lizzie has taken to staying home from school to watch after her dad it becomes painfully clear that we are dealing with a great unspoken grief.

In the end Lizzie and her dad participate together in the Great Human Bird Competition, a sort of flugtag where people adorn themselves in wings and rockets and whatnot and attempt to traverse a body of water propelled under their own power. Dad's obsession with flying at first seems a bi-product of a mental break-down, but as Lizzie (and eventually her Headmaster) discover as they participate in the competition, the act of faith necessary to hurl yourself into the world is exactly what they both need in order to move ahead with their lives. Feeling more alive than before, they reconnoiter back at Aunt Doreen's for some dumplings and find themselves dancing with a new-found joy, a joy that leaves them lighter than birds and flying off the ground.

Almond has managed to dip his pen into Roald Dahl's inkwell and produce a magnificent examination of what it means to find joy after loss, for a family to find their way through the other side of the darkness no matter how odd it may look on the outside. Aunt Doreen and the Headmaster understand the situation and are keeping tabs to make sure that Lizzie and her dad don't fall to far off track, but they hang back enough to let the process run its course.

The feel of this book is what gives it the Dahl flavor in my mind. It would be hard to imagine this story in a contemporary environment without meddling government agencies and relatives who would insist on remaining in the home to assure everything was alright. Aunt Doreen makes a social call but is driven from the house by the sheer absurdity of it all, promising to return with help. The help she return with isn't the police or child protective services but the school headmaster who is more interested in joining Lizzie and her dad in their adventure rather than find fault, place a judgment, or insist on a return to normalcy. It is also in the child as the responsible one and the adults as fools that I find the spectre of Dahl lurking.

Almond can't seem to get away from the connections he makes with birds and death, and certainly there's enough mythology, symbolism, and history to support these connections. But Almond chose the bird's ability to fly to show a rising above, a phoenix-like symbolism for a family being reborn from the ashes of their sorrow. There is nothing sad or sorrowful in the book itself, the entire affair has a sense of whimsy to it, but it's all there just below the surface allowing us to how happiness and joy can re-emerge from experience.

Wow!
I picked up this book by chance at Powells and it was a beautiful, beautiful read. I had no idea where it was really going and so I don't want to give anything away but just prepare to be moved and inspired to build your own wings after you read this special little book. It is a reminder that we should all be working on wings of our own. ... Read more

Product Description
A video message from a dead person. A larcenous teenager. A man who can stick his left toe behind his head and in his ear. An epileptic girl seeking answers in a fairy tale. A boy who loses everything in World War II, and his brother who loses even more. And a family with a secret so big that it changes everything.

The world's best beloved authors each contribute a chapter in the life of the mysterious George "Gee" Keane, photographer, soldier, adventurer and enigma. Under different pens, a startling portrait emerges of a man, his family, and his gloriously complicated tangle of a life.

The full list of authors includes:

Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of A STAR CALLED HENRY; Nick Hornby, author of ABOUT A BOY; Ruth Ozeki, author of MY YEAR OF MEATS; Margo Lanagan, Prinz Honor Award-winning author of BLACK JUICE; Linda Sue Park, Newbery Award-winning author of A SINGLE SHARD; David Almond, winner of the Whitbread Award and Carnegie Medal and author of SKELLIG; Gregory Maguire, author of WICKED; Tim Wynne-Jones, two-time winner of Canada's Governor General's award and author of ONE OF THE KINDER PLANETS; Deborah Ellis, author of THE BREADWINNER; Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl Books.

And more are signing on! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

a book by multiple authors - extremely well done
i don't write very many reviews on amazon, but given the dearth of reviews and the high quality of this book, i figured i'd add another five star review.

each of the authors' stories have their own feel and flow, yet they all fit together extremely well.it's a fast, fun read.

Book Review: Click
After putting this one down, I was left with a problem: how do I review a book written by 10 different authors? You can't expect the same things you do from a standard story. The criteria for "good" and "bad" has to be different. Like continuity for instance. The ten chapters in "Click" were each composed by a different writer, and the transition from one style to the next takes a bit of effort. Acceptable given the format? Yes. Acceptable in a standard, one author book? Not so sure. The result is a book that is fun to dissect and perfectly suited for classroom analysis and discussion. From a pure reading enjoyment standpoint, however, I was left wanting more.

At the heart of the story is George "Gee" Keane. The first chapter (by Park) picks up just a week after Gee's funeral. His grandchildren, Maggie and Jason, are reeling and their parents are doing their best to keep it together. Gee led a truly extraordinary life as a renowned photographer, traveling the world. He left gifts for the Mags and Jason. For his granddaughter, Gee left a box with seven shells, each from a different continent. The accompanying instructions saying simply "Throw them all back". For Jason, a camera.

After that first chapter, each author takes a different aspect of the story (Gee, Maggie, Jason) and expands it. Really, it's more like the book is ten short stories that are all connected, rather than one unified whole. Never does a chapter pick up right were the last one left off, which could be tough for some readers. There wouldn't be much fun in this book if everyone involved tried to work in the same style. I enjoyed detecting the shift for each author. Some leaps are bigger than others (David Almond to Eoin Colfer stands out), and I soon realized that this switch makes you think about what type of writing appeals to you the most.

The design of this book is in-shane. As you can see from the photo above, the book looks like a camera. But it doesn't just slap a lens on there and call it good. No, "Click" gets downright technical in its reproduction. Screws, switches, latches, and gears are all there. Since the driving force in the book is photography, and Gee's camera plays a big role, it is the perfect way to let readers know what they're getting into. Will it appeal to younger readers, not just 26 year old librarians? I'll be curious to see when it hits our library shelves.

I would recommend "Click" for its individual parts, with the caveat that those parts don't add up to be greater than the whole.

More than a camera from their famed photojournalist grandfather.
David Almond and 9 other notable authors join to create CLICK, a novel co-authorized by a group and centering around the mystery of a camera, some photos, and a box of seven shells. The puzzle slowly comes together and changes the lives of Maggie and Jason who inherited more than a camera from their famed photojournalist grandfather.

Just didn' "click" for me
I guess I'm a little different than the above reviewers.I did like the book, but I didn't feel that it gelled together that well.We start out hearing that Jason is a "big-shot senior", but later on, he's only 15 when he received Gee's photos, and soon to turn 16.I feel Gina and Maggie's characters don't follow through all that well. To much personality change. LOVE the concept of the many twists and turns of Gee's enigmatic life, and wish Park would write a continuation of her part.Almond's was everything I have come to expect from his writing, part myth, part reality, and wonderful prose in between!
I know without the mix of the 10 authors, the story probably wouldn't have played out with so many pieces of Gee's life...but the styles bounced too much for my personal taste.I never once felt that it was written by the same person, the individual styles were always there, and kind of "in my face", with each author's name at the top of their story.
It doesn't feel like a collection of shorts, but at the same time, not a novel either.
But don't get me wrong, each story is well written.Awesome authors!But a little too bumpy for this reader.

Completely unique and wonderful!
I picked up this book to see which of my sons would like it more. It was fantastic.It is rather like a sampler of authors.One story throughout, but each chapter is told by a different author.It reminded me of the campfire game where one person in the circle starts the story and it continues on until everyone has had a turn.This is much better as it does not have several "and then..."s.Delightful and original! ... Read more

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Word count: 3310. ... Read more