Showing results for "David Almond" in Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths

Nothing is the same for Joff this summer. His dad is sick, his mum is working, there's a new kid in town. The days are long and hot, and change is in the air. With his dog, Jet, Joff explores. The Chapel of Doom is always there, ancient and crumbling, with its warning signs and the legend of the Falling Boy. But Joff isn't going to go past those signs ... is he?

What should a puppet master do when he's old and alone, and all his puppets are gone? Sylvester makes one last puppet. But this one is different. When the old man speaks to him, Puppet speaks back. And then he walks....

Winner of the Guardian Children's Book Prize 2015. Claire is Ella Grey's best friend. She's there when the whirlwind arrives on the scene: catapulted into a Northeast landscape of gutted shipyards, of high arched bridges and ancient collapsed mines. She witnesses a love so dramatic, it is as if her best friend has been captured and taken from her. But the loss of her friend to the arms of Orpheus is nothing compared to the loss she feels when Ella is taken from the world.

One hot summer morning, Davie steps boldly out of his front door. The world he enters is very familiar - the little Tyneside town that has always been his home - but as the day passes, it becomes ever more mysterious. A boy has been killed, and Davie thinks he might know who is responsible. He turns away from the gossip and excitement and sets off roaming towards the sunlit hills above the town. As the day goes on, the real and the imaginary start to merge, and Davie knows that neither he nor his world will ever be the same again.

It features coming of age stories on the theme of closeness to home, deftly interwoven with illuminating autobiographical pieces on the inspirations behind the fiction. Stories include: "The Missing Link", "Joe Quinn's Poltergeist", "Harry Miller's Run", "Slog's Dad", "Klaus Vogel and the Bad Lads", "Mary Malone", "Half a Creature from the Sea", and, "When God Came to Kathleen's Garden".