Julia and the Shark
An enthralling, uplifting adventure story from the creators of LEILA AND THE BLUE FOX
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
From bestselling author Kiran Millwood Hargrave and acclaimed illustrator Tom de Freston comes an extraordinary story about family, friendship and hope. Illustrated throughout in black, white and yellow, this stunning book is perfect for 9+ fans of David Almond, Sally Gardner and Frances Hardinge.
'Stunning' Cressida Cowell
'A book to treasure!' Jacqueline Wilson
'A classic from cover to cover' Eoin Colfer
'A rich, immersive and wondrous journey' Sophie Anderson
A remote island. A stormy summer. And an adventure as big as the Great Greenland shark ...
My name is Julia.
This is the story of the summer I spent living in a lighthouse.
The summer I almost lost my mum, and found a shark older than trees.
Don't worry though, that doesn't spoil the ending ...
Julia has followed her mum and dad to live on a remote island for the summer - her dad, for work; her mother, on a determined mission to find the elusive Greenland shark. But when her mother's obsession threatens to submerge them all, Julia finds herself on an adventure with dark depths and a lighthouse full of hope...
A beautiful and uplifting story about a mother, a daughter, and love - with timely themes of the importance of science and the environment.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
From the author: “As I’m a writer and [husband] Tom [de Freston] is an artist, we knew we’d collaborate one day. But we were determined not to rush and to wait for the right story to come to us. And then, one day, Julia walked into my head and started telling me her story. Tom and I were terrified that we’d fight, but honestly it was the most wonderful process. Writing can be lonely, not only in practice but also inhabiting the world of a story alone. But Tom was there with me, building it alongside me. It was wonderful. A BBC article blew my mind when it detailed how they’d aged a shark based on the light held in the crystals in its eyes. It felt magical, mythical, and the surface of its skin looked like Tom’s paintings. So the connection was made. Children are the most brutal, most loyal, and most generous of readers. If they don’t enjoy a book, they put it down. But if they do, they love it unreservedly and to receive their responses is an overwhelming joy.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A tempest-tossed race to locate an ancient Greenland shark upends a family in a heart-wrenching novel reminiscent of The Line Tender. Ten-year-old Julia, whose family cues as white, is spending her summer on the Shetland island of Unst while her programmer father automates an old lighthouse and her marine biologist mother attempts to study a recently sighted Greenland shark. After the family travels from Cornwall and arrives at the damp lighthouse, Julia quickly befriends Kin, a local boy who experiences bullying around his Indian heritage. When the shark evades discovery and her mother's grant applications are met with rejection, Julia begins to see her mother's boundless passion and impulsivity in a new light, as well as experience increased tension and desperation within the usually tight-knit family. Plagued by dreams of a phantom shark and swept up in her parents' conflicts, Julia takes drastic and potentially dangerous action. Wry first-person prose by Millwood Hargrave (The Way Past Winter) drives Julia's burgeoning, age-appropriate understanding of her parents as fallible but wholly lovable people in a story that explores bipolar disorder, dementia, and varying kinds of knowledge. Sparse illustrations from de Freston render Julia's experiences in shades of black, gray, and a bright, emotive yellow. Ages 10–up.
