Breaking news: Eating Things on Sticks has been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2009 in the 7-14 age category. The £2,500 prize was founded in 2008 by Michael Rosen as part of his Children’s Laureateship to honour those books that make children laugh. The winner will be announced on 10th November.
Anne Fine will be visiting several book festivals and making other appearances this autumn:
Cover illustration by Jerry Paris
'Glerhus Dill Sotblug!'
Harry is in trouble. He's burned down the family kitchen so now he has to spend a week of his summer hols with his uncle Tristram - who's heading off to stay with his new girlfriend, Morning Glory, on a tiny British island. Harry doesn't expect it to be a lot of fun - with just a wacky competition at the end of the week to look forward to. He certainly didn't expect to discover all the beards. Or the angel on the mountain. Or the helicopters circling overhead all week. And he definitely didn't think it would be so wet.
The ferry man did warn them, 'Glerhus Dill Sotblug!' But what on earth did it MEAN?
And will they end up Eating Things on Sticks ... ?
Eating Things on Sticks is a book for children in the middle age range. It was published by Doubleday on 2nd July 2009.
The Stone Menagerie is a book for older children. It was first published in 1980, and was reissued by Corgi on 2nd July 2009, in a new edition revised by the author.
A frighteningly bossy mother.
A wall of brambles.
And a secret path...
Ally hates being dragged along to visit Aunt Chloe each Sunday. But staring down from the hospital windows he notices something strange.
Then he discovers the stone menagerie – and two young people who help him see the world in a completely different way ...
* * *
Wise, compassionate and deeply moving, The Stone Menagerie is a life-affirming tale from a multi award-winning author.
Anne Fine's eighth book for adults is Our Precious Lulu, published by Bantam Press on 4th June 2009.
Lulu's intolerable. Sexy, long-legged and ruthless, she wormed her way into her new stepfamily when she was very young and, with spite as her principal hobby, has spent every moment since trying to undermine her dumpy and hardworking stepsister Geraldine. Jobs, lovers, passions - Lulu picks up and drops any and all of these almost as often as she chooses and discards her stylish clothes - all the while confident that Geraldine and her faithfully supportive husband Robert will bail her out of any passing problem.
But everything's about to change. Because nobody, not even watchful Robert, has ever realised quite how much of Geraldine's patience with Lulu and her determination to keep all of her family on the rails is based on one small assumption about the mother who spent so many years raising both girls together.
Anne Fine once again displays her extraordinary facility to unpick the tangled threads of family relationships and - to our astonishment and for our deep amusement - lay them bare.
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