Robert Westall creëerde meeslepende verhalen die jonge lezers vaak meenamen naar cruciale historische momenten, met name tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Zijn verhalen verkenden diepgaande thema's als moed, vriendschap en de impact van conflicten op kinderervaringen. Westall bezat een uitgesproken literaire stem, bedreven in het balanceren van de grimmige realiteit van oorlog met blijvende hoop. Hij portretteerde meesterlijk kwetsbare personages die tegenspoed trotseerden, en liet een blijvende indruk achter door zijn emotioneel resonerende en boeiende verhalen.
Twelve-year-old Harry struggles to make it on his own after his family is lost in a German air raid. But as he and his dog companion journey along the northern English coast, there is never enough distance between them and the terrible war.
Living in World War II Britain, Chas McGill is determined to outdo his rival Boddser Brown in obtaining the ultimate war souvenir. When he finds a crashed German bomber in the woods complete with machine gun, he knows he can not only beat Boddser hands down, but can also play a role in the war.
Amid the terryfying times of WWII, one brave cat leads the way to safety, out of the blazing hell of blitzed Coventry. People touch her for luck; fear her as an omen for disaster. Wherever she goes, she changes lives. Her determination never wavers, she is the Blitzcat.
Shortly before the beginning of the Gulf War, Figgis (real name Andy) starts talking in his sleep in a strange language Tom doesn't understand, and calling himself "Latif." "Latif" gradually takes Figgis over - and Tom begins to understand that Figgis has somehow become another boy, a boy in the Gulf.
In medieval France, huge, powerful cats and a magic dagger help Cam, a young English jack-of-all-trades, through a series of unusual and dangerous adventures.
There's a legend about the Watch House... Scrape beneath the whitewash and you'll find terror. You'll find him. Tynemouth, late 1970s. Christmas is coming and Front Street's swinging. But Anne, dumped here while her parents sort their divorce, isn't in the mood. She escapes to the castle, the Priory the beaches. Best of all, the Watch House. The old coastguard's place is packed with weird treasures and no one bothers her. Until lights start to flicker and something stirs in the dark nights... Buried deep in the past is a secret which now threatens everything. Only Anne can stop it. The Watch House is an epic new adaptation of Carnegie Medal-winner Robert Westall's original novel, from Olivier Award-winning theatre-maker Chris Foxon. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Laurels Theatre in Whitley Bay, in December 2023.
Staying with her uncle and his tyrannical housekeeper Caroline befriends a pregnant cat and a cheeky boy called Bobbie, and through them learns the true spirit of Christmas
Is there a barrier that divides the dark unknown from the everyday world around us? If so, is it broken sometimes by the dead returning, by the undead, or by alien creatures? What else could account for the chance meeting (or was it?) between a young student and hitch-hiker who turns out to be so much stranger than she seems? Why else should three successive crews flying a Second World War bomber - Blackham's Wimpey - be driven to madness, despair, even to death, though the plane returns from each mission without a scratch? Who are Fred, Alice and Aunty Lou; the figments of Peter's imagination that become a real life nightmare for Roger and Biddy? There is St Austin Friars, too: a church without a congregation - until a burial service, oddly arranged a month ahead, is attended by a sinister assortment of the living and the dead. And Sergeant Nice, an ordinary policeman in an ordinary seaside town faced with a series of quite extraordinary thefts; the work surely, of no human hand-Chilling, but often humorous as well, these stories creep up on you and take you by surprise.
Alone and unhappy in Garmouth, Anne becomes obsessed by the old Life Brigade's Watch House. It stands tall, a memorial of horrible violent watery deaths. Such a place is bound to be full of restless spirits of long-dead sailers - but what do they want with Anne? Who is writing in messages in the dust? And is there someone watching and waiting behind the empty windows of the Watch House?
