Melvin Burgess is een Britse auteur die wordt gevierd om zijn gedurfde en realistische verkenningen van het leven van jongvolwassenen. Hij heeft erkenning gekregen voor het met compromisloze eerlijkheid aanpakken van controversiële thema's zoals drugsgebruik en seksualiteit onder tieners. Burgess verweeft behendig polyfonie in zijn verhalen, waardoor complexe ervaringslagen voor zijn lezers ontstaan. Naast rauw realisme waagt hij zich ook in fantastische gebieden en biedt hij consequent een onderscheidende en impactvolle stem in kinder- en jeugdliteratuur.
Tam is unhappy at home and often takes refuge in the ruins of Thowt It Farm.
But then one day he is transported back to the Second World War. Alone and
afraid, he makes friends with May, who has been rescued from a bombed-out
house. She tries to persuade him to stay at the farm, but Tam is afraid of
being trapped in the past forever.
A Carnegie Medal NomineeTwelve-year-old David lives with his dad in a big London apartment building called Mahogany Villas, where he climbs through the building's old ventilation system to play tricks on the other tenants. But David's nasty pranks disturb more than just his elderly neighbor. One day, he comes face-to-face with a ghost, at first friendly but eventually terrifying. Soon the old man and David are in great danger.(AR) For ages 9-12Available only in Young Adul Standing Order.
Fifteen-year-old Sigurd, son of King Sigmund, is the last surviving member of
the Volson clan. His father's kingdom - the former city of London - is gone.
And his father's knife, a gift from the gods, has been shattered to dust.
Billy Elliot's tough, funny and heart-warming story is given new depth by best-selling author, Melvin Burgess. Billy's mother is dead, and his father and brother are fiercely involved in a bitter miners' fight that has split the local community. Billy's father wants his son to learn boxing, like he did and his father before him. But Billy is fascinated by the grace and magic of ballet and is determined to dance his way to a different future. Told from the differing viewpoints of Billy, his father and brother and his friend Michael, Melvin Burgess has captured the spirit of the original film screenplay while demonstrating the skill and inspiration he showed in his award-winning novel, Junk.
When Nick's mother dies suddenly, the fourteen-year-old is sent straight into a boys' home, where he finds institutional intimidation and violence keep order. After countless fights and punishments, Nick thinks life can't get any worse - but the professionally respected deputy head, Mr Creal, who has been grooming him with sweets and solace, has something much more sinister in mind. The scarring, shaming experience he suffers at the hands of Mr Creal can never quite be suppressed, and when the old hatred surfaces, bloody murder and revenge lead to an unforgettable climax.
Eleven-year-old Billy Elliot is different from other boys. He is not very clever or good at sports. Then, one day, he discovers ballet dancing. Finally he has found something that he can do well. But everybody knows that ballet is for girls, not boys! Will Billy continue to dance? Or have his father and brother got other plans for him? -- p. 4 of cover.
Someone mad was screaming at them from the upstairs window of a house next to the station. It was a girl. "Oh, that's April. Don't mind her... deaf and dumb, see." Abandoned by his father to a life of poverty, Tony is angry with everyone, and desperately lonely. April Dean, the deaf girl, needs friends too. But their growing relationship arouses deep prejudices which threaten to engulf not only Tony and April but also the whole village. This moving and powerful love story is about two very different people, worlds apart.
THE FIRST ADULT NOVEL BY THE CARNEGIE PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF JUNK'A spirited
retelling... witty and insightful.' i PAPER'His prose is electrical, crackling
with a mischievous charge.' BUZZ MAGAZINE'Told with wit [and] verve... it's a
book that exerts a curious charm.' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Burgess recounts Loki's
genius . . . with great gusto, pulling together many tales into one sometimes
beautifully lyrical masterwork.' SFX MAGAZINE'a mischievous, unpredictable and
clever book that breathes new life into an already fascinating character and
godly race.' CULTUREFLYStep into the ancient fir-tree forests of Scandinavia
and bear witness to legends as epic as those of the Greeks and the
Romans.Melvin Burgess revolutionised children's literature with the infamous
cult novels Junk and Doing It. In his first adult novel, Loki, he breathes new
life into Norse myths.Starting with the Norse creation myths, the trickster
god Loki takes the reader on a wild ride through Norse mythology, from the
time the gods - the founders of Asgard - defeated races of monsters, and
hurtling through famous stories, including Odin hanging himself on the World
Tree, the theft of the corrupting gold ring and the murder of Baldr, the god
of love and the Sun. This narrative may seem familiar enough at first, but the
reader should beware. Born within the heart of a fire in the hollow of a tree-
trunk, Loki arrives in Asgard as an outsider. He is a trickster, an unreliable
narrator, the god of intelligence and politics. In spite of his cleverness and
sparkling wit (or, perhaps, because of this...) Loki struggles to find his
place among the old patriarchal gods of supernatural power and is constantly
at odds with the god of thunder - Thor. Alongside the politics of Asgard, it
charts the course of Loki's many loves and families, from his mothering of
Odin's famous horse to his intense, turbulent, and, eventually, fatal
relationship with Baldr the Beautiful - a tender and moving story of love that
goes wrong, jealousy and a transitioning that is forbidden by society. This is
a retelling that is contemporary in tone, at once amusing and relatable. It is
a heartfelt plea to overthrow the old gods of power and authority and
instigate a new era ruled by love and intelligence.
Everyone says fourteen-year-old Billie is nothing but trouble. A fighter. A
danger to her family and friends. But her care worker sees someone different.
Her classmate Rob is strong; he can take care of himself and his brother. But
his violent stepdad sees someone to humiliate. And Chris is struggling at
school; he just doesn't want to be there.