David Almond

From master storyteller David Almond comes a gripping, exquisitely written novel about a hidden-away child who emerges into a broken world. Billy Dean is a secret child. He has a beautiful young mother and a father who arrives at night carrying the scents of candles and incense and cigarettes. Birds fly to his window. Mice run out from his walls. His world is a carpet, a bed, pictures of the holy island, and a single locked door. His father fills

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Unhappy about his baby sister's illness and the chaos of moving into a dilapidated old house, Michael retreats to the garage and finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel.

The developing relationship between teenager Davie and a mysterious new boy in town morphs into something darker and more sinister when Davie learns firsthand of the boy's supernatural powers.

"It's 1918, and war is everywhere. John's father is fighting in the trenches far away in France, while his mother works in a menacing munitions factory just down the road. His teacher says that John is fighting, too, that he is at war with enemy children in Germany. One day, in the wild woods outside town, John has an impossible moment: a dreamlike meeting with a German boy named Jan. John catches a glimpse of a better world, in which children like...

In 1962 England, despite observing his father's illness and the suffering of the fire-eating Mr. McNulty, as well as enduring abuse at school and the stress of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Burns and his family and friends still find reasons to rejoice in their lives and to have hope for the future.

"One hot summer morning, only weeks after his father's death, Davie steps out his front door into the familiar streets of the Tyneside town that has always been his home. But this seemingly ordinary day takes on an air of mystery and tragedy as the residents learn that a boy has been killed. Despite the threat of a murderer on the loose, Davie turns away from the gossip and sets off toward the sunlit hill above town, where the real and imaginary worlds...

Nanty Solo is new in town and claims she can turn children into birds. Terrified parents forbid the idea, but the children want to fly--they want it very much--and they do. One by one, they approach Nanty Solo. One by one, they are transformed until the sky over town teems with rooks and goldfinches, parakeets and sparrows. The adults take one look and cry, "Get out of that sky this very minute!" But the sight of their offspring--set free to soar,...

"Annie Lumsden has hair that drifts like seaweed, eyes that shine like rock pools, and thoughts that dart and dance like minnows. She lives with her artist mother by the sea, where she feels utterly at home, and has long felt apart from the other girls at school. Words and numbers on the page don't make sense to her, and strange maladies have been springing up that the doctors can't explain. Annie's mother says that all things can be turned into tales,...

A dark, powerful and moving short story from the internationally acclaimed author of Skellig. Joe Quinn tells everyone about the poltergeist in his house, but no one believes him. No one that is, except for Davey. He's felt the inexplicable presence in the rooms, he's seen random objects fly through the air. And there's something else ... a memory of his beloved sister, and a feeling deep down that somehow it might be possible for ghosts to exist....

An anthology of dark, powerful and moving short stories from master storyteller David Almond, inspired by his childhood in the north-east of England. 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. David Almond says of this unique collection, "Stories on the page are so beautifully neat. All that lovely black print; those lovely...