Midnight for Charlie Bone
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- £3.49
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- £3.49
Publisher Description
Classic magic and mystery from one of Britain’s best-loved authors of fantasy adventure. Perfect for fans of Harry Potter, Eva Ibbotson, Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart and Shane Hegarty’s Darkmouth.
An Academy for magic and special talents. A destiny unfulfilled. A secret legacy.
The first instalment of the international best-selling fantasy series from Jenny Nimmo starring Charlie Bone.
Since his father died, Charlie Bone has lived with his mother and her mother, in the house of his other grandmother, Grandma Bone. Looking at a picture of a couple with a baby and a cat, he suddenly discovers he can hear their voices. Although he tries to hide his new gift, Grandma Bone and her scary sisters soon find out, and send him to Bloor's Academy. Charlie quickly finds life at Bloor's pretty tough, with its strict rules and the malevolent head boy, Manfred, set against him. When Charlie discovers that the child in the photograph is being held, hypnotised, against her will, he and his new friends with 'gifts' try to awaken her. But can they overcome Manfred's sinister hypnotic gifts?
Have you collected all of the Charlie Bone books?
Midnight for Charlie Bone
Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa
Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors
Charlie Bone and the Hidden King
Charlie Bone and the Wilderness Wolf
Charlie Bone and the Shadow of Badlock
Charlie Bone and the Red Knight
Also look out for The Snow Spider trilogy.
‘Dark, funny, crackling with magic’ – author Artemis Cooper on Midnight for Charlie Bone
‘A fast moving, dialogue driven romp with plenty of cliff-hangers for those first hooked into reading by Harry Potter’ – Bookseller on Midnight for Charlie Bone
Jenny Nimmo is the acclaimed author of the Charlie Bone books for children. She has won several significant awards for her children’s books, including the Nestle Smarties Book Prize and the Tir na n-Og Welsh Arts Council award for The Snow Spider. She lives in Wales with her husband, David.
Reviews
The story is lively, accomplished and dramatic and the writing has an engaging directness and warmth'', Helen Dunmore, Daily Telegraph
'This book is a gripping fantasy tale of mystery, suitable for children and adults. If you like Harry Potter you will love this.
Harry, aged 8', Books for Keeps
'A fast moving, dialogue-driven romp with plenty of cliff-hangers for those first hooked into reading by Harry Potter".', Reviewer, The Bookseller
About the author
Jenny Nimmo has been an actor, researcher, floor-manager and script editor for children’s television. Her first book ‘The Bronze Trumpeter’ was published in 1975. ‘The Snow Spider’ won the Tir na N’Og award and the Smarties Grand Prix. Her most recent book, for older readers, is ‘Milo’s Wolves’. Jenny Nimmo was born in Windsor, Berkshire and now lives in Wales with her artist husband and three bi-lingual children.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The first in the projected Children of the Red King series, this paper-over-board British fantasy reads like ersatz Harry Potter. Charlie Bone, a likable "ordinary" boy of about 10, lives with his loving widowed mom and her mother, a salt-of-the-earth type, and his foreboding but wealthy paternal relations, who are "endowed" (with psychic abilities) and who watch Charlie for signs of the Yewbeam family gift. When Charlie suddenly begins to "hear" subjects in photographs, the Yewbeams delightedly pack him off to Bloor's Academy for similarly gifted children. Before he enrolls, however, voices from photographs lead him into a mystery, pointing to a suspicious baby "adoption" and involving clues about his own father's past; while these are the most original elements here, they, too, are familiar. At the Hogwarts-like Bloor's, Charlie is thrust into an ongoing struggle of good vs. evil, accompanied by new friends (an albino orphan, a drama diva and a musician) and confronted with mesmerizing foes (chiefly, the scion of the power-mad Bloor family). Nimmo writes solidly, but her powers of invention (shown in, for example, her Griffin's Castle) cannot withstand the comparison she invites with J.K. Rowling. Next in the series, The Time Twister. Ages 12-up.