Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
The combination of cartoons with sharp wit is what makes this book so uniquely special.' Books Quaterly (Waterstones) '... full of charm ... imaginative and bursting with inventive, off-the-wall humour, making them great stories to be read aloud.' Waterstones Books Quarterly 'another triumph from the creative pen of Cressida Cowell.' Writeaway.org '... inspired series ... its enchantment lies primarily in the comical, affectionate and often irritable relationship between Hiccup (the only nerd in the violent Viking Hooligan tribe) and his runty little dragon Toothless.' Amanda Craig, The Times Fiercely exciting and laugh-aloud funny, it is as full of joy for children of 7+ who have given up reading as for those who love it. Amanda Craig, The Times CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK: This book is great fun and has a Blackadderish sense of humour ... full of the sort of jokes that will make schoolboys snigger. Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times How to Train Your Dragon is a delightful narrative caper... It offers
One beautiful March morning, a student goes to school with guns instead of books, and starts shooting. Ten people are killed, and the local town is left reeling. In the search for justice and explanations which follows, the daughter of the judge sitting on the case is the state's best witness - but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. Or can she?
Spanning almost thirty years and settings that range from big cities to small towns and farmsteads of rural Canada, this magnificent collection brings together twenty-eight stories by a writer of unparalleled wit, generosity, and emotional power. In her Selected Stories, Alice Munro makes lives that seem small unfold until they are revealed to be as spacious as prairies and locates the moments of love and betrayal, desire and forgiveness, that change those lives forever. To read these stories--about a traveling salesman and his children on an impromptu journey; an abandoned woman choosing between seduction and solitude--is to succumb to the spell of a writer who enchants her readers utterly even as she restores them to their truest selves.
