Life of Pi by Yann Martel

'Extraordinary...Life of Pi could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life.' New York Times

'This enormously lovable novel is suffused with wonder.'

The Guardian

In the author's note that prefaces this vertiginously tall tale, Yann Martel blends fact and fiction with wily charm. Yes, he'd published two books that failed to shake the world - eager, studious-young-man's fiction with a strain of self-conscious experimentalism - and taken off to India nursing the faltering seeds of another. But no, he didn't there meet a wise old man who directed him to a putative "main character", now living back in Martel's native Toronto: a certain Piscine Molitor or Pi Patel, named for a French swimming pool and nicknamed for an irrational number, who in the mid-1970s survived 227 days lost at sea with a Royal Bengal tiger.

Despite the extraordinary premise and literary playfulness, one reads Life of Pi not so much as an allegory or magical-realist fable, but as an edge-of-seat adventure.

When the ship in which 16-year-old Pi and his zookeeping family are to emigrate from India to Canada sinks, leaving him the sole human survivor in a lifeboat on to which barge a zebra, a hyena, an orang-utan and a bedraggled, seasick tiger, Pi is determined to survive the impossible. "I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen every day." And Martel writes with such convincing immediacy, seasoning his narrative with zoological verisimilitude and survival tips about turtle- fishing, solar stills and keeping occupied (the lifeboat manual notes that "yarn spinning is highly recommended"), that disbelief is suspended, like Pi, above the terrible depths of the Pacific ocean.

Extract from the opening of the novel...

...in Toronto, among nine columns of Patels in the phone book, I found him, the main character. My heart pounded as I dialed his phone number. The voice that answered had an Indian lilt to its Canadian accent, light but unmistakable, like a trace of incense in the air. "That was a very long time ago," he said. Yet he agreed to meet. We met many times. He showed me the diary he kept during the events. He showed me the yellowed newspaper clippings that made him briefly, obscurely famous. He told me his story. All the while I took notes. Nearly a year later, after considerable difficulties, I received a tape and a report from the Japanese Ministry of Transport. It was as I listened to that tape that I agreed with Mr. Adirubasamy that this was, indeed, a story to make you believe in God.

It seemed natural that Mr Patel's story should be told mostly in the first person, in his voice and through his eyes. But any inaccuracies or mistakes are mine. It also seemed natural that the end of the story should come first, that the beginning should be in the middle, and that the story should come last. Such is the logic of fiction. A story is always better appreciated if its ending is known first.

About the Author

Yann Martel was born in Salamanca, Spain, in 1963, of Canadian parents who were doing graduate studies. Later they both joined the Canadian foreign service and he grew up in Costa Rica, France, Spain and Mexico, in addition to Canada. He continued to travel widely as an adult, spending time in Iran, Turkey and India, but is now based mainly in Montreal. He obtained a degree in Philosophy from Trent University in Ontario, then worked variously as a tree planter, dishwasher and security guard before taking up writing full-time from the age of 27.

His first book, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, was published in 1993 and is a collection of short stories, dealing with such themes as illness, storytelling and the history of the twentieth century; music, war and the anguish of youth; how we die; and grief, loss and the reasons we are attached to material objects.

This was followed by his first novel, Self (1996), a tale of sexual identity, orientation and Orlando-like transformation. It is described by Charles Foran in the Montreal Gazette as a ' ... superb psychological acute observation on love, attraction and belonging ...'

In 2002 Yann Martel came to public attention when he won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his second novel, Life of Pi (2002), an epic survival story with an overarching religious theme. The novel tells the story of one Pi Patel, the son of an Indian family of zookeepers. They decide to emigrate to Canada and embark on a ship with their animals to cross the Pacific. They are shipwrecked and Pi is left bobbing in a lifeboat in the company of a zebra, a hyena, an orang-utan and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Life of Pi will eventually be published in over forty countries and territories, representing well over thirty languages, and the film rights have been optioned by Fox studios.

In 2004, a collection of short stories was published entitled We Ate The Children Last. His latest book is a further novel, Beatrice and Virgil (2010), which deals with the holocaust.

To find out more about the novel click below...

http://www.lifeofpi.co.uk/

Frozen in Time by Ali Sparkes

Two cryonically frozen children are brought back to life after fifty years - and find themselves caught up in a thrilling contemporary adventure.

1956 Freddy and Polly have always known their father is a genius so they've never minded helping him with his experiments. Even when that means being put into cryonic suspension-having their hearts frozen until their father wakes them up again. They know it will only be for an hour or two, so there's nothing to worry about...
2009 Ben and Rachel have resigned themselves to a long, boring summer. Then they find the hidden underground vault in the garden and inside it two frozen figures, a boy and a girl. And as if that isn't spooky enough, when Rachel accidentally presses a button, something unbelievable happens...

Ali Sparkes has written other books including the brilliant Shapeshifter series.
To find out more about her, click the link below

http://http//www.alisparkes.co.uk/

Elidor by Alan Garner

'This is a classic.' Reading Matters

"It is not easy to cross from your world into this... but there are places where they touch."

On a gloomy day in Manchester, Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David are lured into a ruined church, where the fabric of time and place is weak enough to draw them into the twilight world of Elidor.

It is a place almost destroyed by the fear and darkness, and the children are charged with guarding its Treasures while a way is sought to save the dying land.
 
But soon the safety of this world is pit in danger as the evil forces of Elidor find a path through to reclaim the Treasures for themselves...

The power of it lies in the awful build-up of suspense.

Manchester in 1965 is a place of bombsites and slum clearance programmes. Mooching around with a football one cold afternoon, the four Watson children roam inside a Victorian red-brick church which is about to be demolished. They can't find their ball, which was carelessly kicked over the wall, and one by one the children disappear as they go to look for it. When only Roland is left, he finds that the heavy iron-handled door which the mysterious lame fiddler urges him to open, is a portal into the troubled land of Elidor.

Elidor is a wild and empty kingdom on the point of being devoured by the forces of evil. Of four castles in the landscape, three have been lost to evil and the fourth is failing. The lame fiddler of Manchester is the lame King Malebron of Elidor and he charges Roland to help him to regain the three treasures which are held in the Mound of Vandwy. Roland is able to do this by visualizing a door in the mound and walking in. Inside he is reunited with his brothers and sister who had, each in turn, tried to help Malebron but failed. They locate the three treasures: a cauldron, a sword and a stone and bear them outside to the waiting Malebron.

Malebron is in desperate straits and asks the children to take all four treasures of Elidor, including his own spear, back to their world to hide them from the powers of evil. In this way Elidor cannot totally succumb.
Back in Manchester, the exquisite treasures of Elidor take the form of nothing more valuable than a broken teacup, a stone and a piece of iron railing but the children dutifully bury them in their back garden and try to think no more about them.

Unfortunately, Roland's big mistake was in visualizing his own front door when he sought an opening into the Mound of Vandwy. The treasures act as a beacon for the forces of evil from Elidor and they soon come come round peeping through the letter box.

One of the most memorable and powerful pieces of writing I have ever come across occurs in this book. The buried treasures of Elidor generate some kind of powerful energy which is capable of being picked up in Elidor, but it also interferes with all the electrical goods in the house and surrounding area, and even the car. In the silence of the winter evening, after the television and radio pack up, the family listen with growing disquiet as first the electric razor upstairs starts itself, then the electric mixer and the washing machine in the kitchen. Nothing can be done to stop them since they are not plugged in.

The children must return the treasures to Elidor where they belong, but they must also help Malebron defeat the forces of evil by fulfilling a prophecy.

About the Author

Alan Garner was born and still lives in Cheshire, an area which has had a profound effect on his writing and provided the seed of many ideas worked out in his books.

His fourth book, 'The Owl Service' brought Alan Garner to everyone's attention.

It won two important literary prizes - The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal - and was made into a serial by Granada Television.

It has established itself as a classic and Alan Garner as a writer of great distinction.

Despite an OBE for services to children's literature, and the fact that books like The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Elidor are the kind of absorbing childhood fantasy that reverberates into adulthood, to view Garner as a children's writer is reductive. He puts it best when he says: "I do not write for children, but for myself. Adolescents read my books. By adolescence, I mean an arbitrary age somewhere between 10 and 18." It's an in-between group, and Garner's books are likewise poised between passion and detachment, intensity and alienation, blunt modernity and ancient myth.

His style is stripped-down, yet shares dialect and linguistic relish with much older works. "The language of my childhood and of my native culture is, technically, North-west Mercian Middle English," he has said - the language of the Gawain poet. The layers of local history and a precise sense of place are paramount in his work.

He has been writing for over 40 years; each book is a lengthy project as he pours so much research into it (learning Welsh for The Owl Service, for example). Eventually, "I feel a jolt within me and I hear quite without any understanding; I hear words, which I put down". Not all his work is fantasy - the Stone Quartet follows four generations of Garner's family from the mid-19th century to the second world war. Strandloper, his first novel for adults, was a difficult, almost experimental, evocation of Aboriginal culture. In his 2003 adult book, Thursbitch, which grew out of his fascination with a mysterious tombstone on a Pennine track, he is back on home ground and all the better for it.

Want to know why Alan Garner writes? Click here to find out...

The Owl Service by Alan Garner

Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal.

"A rare imaginative feat and the taste that it leaves is haunting." The Observer

"One of the first and best novels for and about teenagers; it remains one of the most original and gripping ghost stories. Timeless!" The Times

"Something was stirring in the valley, something powerful and old. Something which had no place in the rational modern world..."

Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, this is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships.

It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody's lives.

Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend - a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent that only by accepting and facing the situation can it be resolved.
In The Owl Service, Alan Garner takes this old, old story from the Welsh legends which make up the Mabinogion and blends it into the present. It's a fascinating book. There aren't any facile tricks of plot - no time travel, no spirits from the past inhabiting the pages of today.

The Owl Service is about a summer in a Welsh valley not thousands of years ago, but in the twentieth century. Alison and Gwyn find an old dinner service in the attic of the house where Gwyn's mother is housekeeper and which Alison has inherited from her father.

As Alison begins feverishly to trace and make paper owls from the flowered pattern on the plates, Gwyn and Roger join her in reliving the roles of that past drama. And yet, they are not possessed, they remain entirely themselves, with their own qualities, opinions, talents and problems. In the old time there were gods and goddesses, curses, heirs and fiefdoms. In the present time there are step-families and the class struggle. So different and yet somehow, so very much the same. The Bookbag

About the Author

Alan Garner was born and still lives in Cheshire, an area which has had a profound effect on his writing and provided the seed of many ideas worked out in his books.

His fourth book, 'The Owl Service' brought Alan Garner to everyone's attention.

It won two important literary prizes - The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal - and was made into a serial by Granada Television.

It has established itself as a classic and Alan Garner as a writer of great distinction.

Despite an OBE for services to children's literature, and the fact that books like The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Elidor are the kind of absorbing childhood fantasy that reverberates into adulthood, to view Garner as a children's writer is reductive. He puts it best when he says: "I do not write for children, but for myself. Adolescents read my books. By adolescence, I mean an arbitrary age somewhere between 10 and 18." It's an in-between group, and Garner's books are likewise poised between passion and detachment, intensity and alienation, blunt modernity and ancient myth.

His style is stripped-down, yet shares dialect and linguistic relish with much older works. "The language of my childhood and of my native culture is, technically, North-west Mercian Middle English," he has said - the language of the Gawain poet. The layers of local history and a precise sense of place are paramount in his work.

He has been writing for over 40 years; each book is a lengthy project as he pours so much research into it (learning Welsh for The Owl Service, for example). Eventually, "I feel a jolt within me and I hear quite without any understanding; I hear words, which I put down". Not all his work is fantasy - the Stone Quartet follows four generations of Garner's family from the mid-19th century to the second world war. Strandloper, his first novel for adults, was a difficult, almost experimental, evocation of Aboriginal culture. In his 2003 adult book, Thursbitch, which grew out of his fascination with a mysterious tombstone on a Pennine track, he is back on home ground and all the better for it.
Want to know why Alan Garner writes? Click here to find out...

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

The story starts out simply enough: Jess Aarons wants to be the fastest boy in the fifth grade - he wants it so bad he can taste it. He's been practising all summer, running in the fields around his farmhouse until he collapses in a sweat. Then a tomboy named Leslie Burke moves into the farmhouse next door and changes his life forever. Not only does Leslie not look or act like any girls Jess knows, but she also turns out to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. After getting over the shock and humiliation of being beaten by a girl, Jess begins to think Leslie might be alright.

Despite their superficial differences, it's clear that Jess and Leslie are soul mates. The two create a secret kingdom in the woods named Terabithia, where the only way to get into the castle is by swinging out over a gully on an enchanted rope. Here they reign as king and queen, fighting off imaginary giants and the walking dead, sharing stories and dreams, and plotting against the schoolmates who tease them. Jess and Leslie find solace in the sanctuary of Terabithia until a tragedy strikes and the two are separated forever.

In a style that is both plain and powerful, Katherine Paterson's characters will stir your heart and put a lump in your throat.

About the Author

Katherine Paterson was born in China in 1932, the middle of five children. Her parents were missionaries and during her childhood the family travelled extensively. After graduating she was a teacher in Virginia and later she travelled to Japan where she lived for four years. She now lives in Vermont, USA and teaches, reads and cooks. Katherine Paterson is twice winner of the Newbery Medal including her 1978 win for Bridge to Terabithia.

Here's the trailer for the 2007 film...

My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick

Winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize

'A bloodthirsty tale which grips readers from the off.' WATERSTONE'S BOOKS QUARTERLY

'Marcus Sedgwick paints a chilling and irresistibly Gothic picture of the fight between good against evil. This book is tense, unnerving and well-structured - it scared me right to the end and I could not put it down.'  Anna Hickling, The Times

'He came to the gate of the graveyard. There could be no doubt. The wool ran over the fence next to the gate, as if his quarry had sailed clean over it. Dumbly, he gripped it, as if it were a lifeline, when in reality it was leading him towards death itself...' 

In the bitter cold of an unrelenting winter Tomas and his son, Peter, arrive in Chust and despite the inhospitability of the villagers settle there as woodcutters.

Tomas digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut so they have their own little island kingdom. Peter doesn't understand why his father has done this, nor why his father carries a long battered box everywhere they go, and why he is forbidden to know its contents. But when a band of gypsies comes to the village Peter's drab existence is turned upside down.

He is infatuated by the beautiful gypsy princess, Sofia, intoxicated by their love of life and drawn into their deadly quest. For these travellers are Vampire Slayers and Chust is a dying community - where the dead come back to wreak revenge on the living.

Amidst the terrifying events that follow, Peter is stunned to see his father change from a disillusioned man to the warrior hero he once was.

Set in the remote and forbidding landscapes of the seventeenth century this is a heart-rending story of loss and redemption, and inspired by the original vampire folklore of Eastern Europe it represents a unique regeneration of a timeless myth.

Marcus Sedgwick is a successful children's author. When he was young he was told he wouldn't be able to make a living as an author, and that left an impression on him, so much so that he did maths and politics at university. But then he got a job in a children's bookshop, "fell in love with contemporary children's writing" and remembered his childhood aspirations to become a writer. He decided to give it a try.



About the Author

Since Floodland won the Brandford-Boase Award for the best first children's novel of 2000, Marcus Sedgwick's books have been shortlisted for many awards, including The Guardian Children's Fiction Award, The Blue Peter Book Award, the Carnegie Medal and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. About My Swordhand is Singing he says: "It was fascinating to discover the original folklore that gave birth to the vampire legend. No snowy graveyard is left unvisited, no corpse undisturbed, no spell unspoken, no date with destiny unmet. But it's not all gloom; there's misery and horror, too."

By day he works in children's publishing and by night is the drummer in a rock band in Brighton. He lives in Sussex with his wife Pippa, and has a daughter, Alice.

Click here to visit Marcus Sedgewick's own website...

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

"Without this child, we shall all die."

Lyra Belacqua and her animal daemon live half-wild and carefree among scholars of Jordan College, Oxford. The destiny that awaits her will take her to the frozen lands of the Arctic, where witch-clans reign and ice-bearsfight. Her extraordinary journey will have immeasurable consequences far beyond her own world...

Lyra's life is already sufficiently interesting for a novel before she eavesdrops on a presentation by her uncle Lord Asriel to his colleagues in the Jordan College faculty, Oxford.

The college, famed for its leadership in experimental theology, is funding Lord Asriel's research into the heretical possibility of the existence of worlds unlike Lyra's own, where everyone is born with a familiar animal companion, magic of a kind works, the Tartars are threatening to overrun Muscovy, and the Pope is a puritanical Protestant.

Set in an England familiar and strange, Philip Pullman's lively, taut story is a must-read and re-read for fantasy lovers of all ages. The world-building is outstanding, from the subtle hints of the 1898 Tokay to odd quirks of language to the panserbjorne, while determined, clever Lyra is a strong role-model for any aspiring adventurer.

Watch the trailer to the film version of the novel...




To celebrate the launch of The Guardian children's books website, they invited Philip Pullman's young fans to ask him questions...click here to see what he had to say...

About the Author

Philip Pullman was born in Norwich on 19th October 1946. The early part of his life was spent travelling all over the world, because his father and then his stepfather were both in the Royal Air Force. He spent part of his childhood in Australia, where he first met the wonders of comics, and grew to love Superman and Batman in particular. From the age of 11, he lived in North Wales, having moved back to Britain. It was a time when children were allowed to roam anywhere, to play in the streets, to wander over the hills, and he took full advantage of it. His English teacher, Miss Enid Jones, was a big influence on him, and he still sends her copies of his books.

After he left school he went to Exeter College, Oxford, to read English. He did a number of odd jobs for a while, and then moved back to Oxford to become a teacher. He taught at various middle schools for twelve years, and then moved to Westminster College, Oxford, to be a part-time lecturer. He taught courses on the Victorian novel and on the folk tale, and also a course examining how words and pictures fit together. He eventually left teaching in order to write full-time.

His first published novel was for adults, but he began writing for children when he was a teacher. Some of his novels were based on plays he wrote for his school pupils, such as The Ruby In The Smoke. He is best known for the award winning His Dark Materials series, consisting of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

To find out more about the author and the other books in this trilogy click here...

Skellig by David Almond

'A story of love and faith, written with exquisite, heart-fluttering tenderness. It is an extraordinarily profound book, no matter what the age of the reader' - THE CHAIR OF THE WHITBREAD JUDGES' PANEL

When a move to a new house coincides with his baby sister's illness, Michael's world seems suddenly lonely and uncertain.

Then, one Sunday afternoon, he stumbles into the old, ramshackle garage of his new home, and finds something magical. A strange creature - part owl, part angel, a being who needs Michael's help if he is to survive. With his new friend Mina, Michael nourishes Skellig back to health, while his baby sister languishes in the hospital.

But Skellig is far more than he at first appears, and as he helps Michael breathe life into his tiny sister, Michael's world changes forever . . .

Skellig won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book Award and is now a major Sky1 feature film, starring Tim Roth and John Simm. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.

About the Author

David Almond is twice winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award. His first novel, SKELLIG, won the Whitbread Children's Award and the Carnegie Medal. His second, KIT'S WILDERNESS, won the Smarties Award Silver Medal, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal, and shortlisted for the Guardian Award. THE FIRE-EATERS won the Whitbread, the Smarties Gold Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and innovative children's authors writing today, and his books are bestsellers all over the world.

Find out more about the Sky1 adaptation here...

Find out more about the author David Almond and his other books here...

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume One by M.T. Anderson

"A book which arrives from America groaning with rewards and reputation. It deserves to do just as well here." The Guardian

Boston, 1775. Raised by a society of rational philosophers, who call each other by a number, Octavian and his mother - a princess in exile from a faraway land - are the only people in their household assigned names. The boy is dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest classical education but as his regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments - and his own chilling role in them.

An extract from early in the story might give you a taste of this extraordinary book:

A man in a topiary maze cannot judge of the twistings and turnings, and which avenue might lead him to the heart; while one who stands above, on some pleasant prospect, looking down upon the labyrinth, is reduced to watching the bewildered circumnavigations of the tiny victim through obvious coils -- as the gods, perhaps, looked down on besieged and blood-sprayed Troy from the safety of their couches, and thought mortals weak and foolish while they themselves reclined in comfort, and had only to snap to call Ganymede to their side with nectar decanted.

So I, now, with the vantage of years, am sensible of my foolishness, my blindness, as a child. I cannot think of my blunders without shriveling of the inward parts -- not merely the desiccation attendant on shame, but also the aggravation of remorse that I did not demand more explanation, that I did not sooner take my mother by the hand and--

I do not know what I regret. I sit with my pen, and cannot find an end to that sentence.

I do not know what we may do, to know another better.

Octavian Nothing is on Facebook...

'The hallmarks of Anderson’s style are a sharp ear for adolescent voices, a sometimes perverse sense of humor and an interest in the corrosive effects of groupthink on the average human’s ability to behave ethically. His new book has all those qualities, but represents a striking advance in terms of both technique and literary ambition.'  New York Times

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Winner of the Carnegie Medal in 2010, shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2010, winner of Best Novel at the Hugo Awards 2009 and of the prestigious Newbery Medal.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, would be a completely normal boy if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts. For it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks, a danger that has already killed Bod's family.

The black and white illustrations, reminiscent of old-fashioned book plates, really add to the story, enabling the reader to visualise its weird and wonderful cast of characters. The portraits of Eliza, and the four Jacks are particularly memorable. The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal Shortlist for 2010; Judges’ comments.

Find out more by clicking here...

About the Author

Neil Gaiman is the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of Coraline and Stardust, both of which are major motion films. He also writes screenplays for other people's films including Beowulf starring Anthony Hopkins and Angeline Jolie, as well as books for adults. He is the creator/writer of the award-winning Sandman comic series and has written several books for young children.Though British, he now lives in the USA where he travels extensively promoting his books.

Find out more about the author by going to his blog here...

BBC News Site - Neil Gaiman wins children's book prize