Anthony McGowan

Nicky is confronted by the school bully Peter who is constantly teasing him about his disabled brother Kenny. Things are complicated because Nicky really likes the bully's sister Sarah ( who has stood up for him in the past and is nothing like her brother.) Things come to a head when Nicky, angry at his own inability to ask Sarah out explodes and shoves Peter. Peter falls and has an epileptic fit. The consequences for Nicky are dire...he is expelled from school. With his father a recovering alcoholic, a disabled brother, money is tight....what has Nicky done?
This book starts off with Nicky and Kenny rescuing a rook from the clutches of a hawk and Kenny wanting to nurse it back to health. When the rook disappears from its cardboard box in front of the fire, Nicky assumes it is dead and his Dad has made up some story to placate Kenny. This short story follows on from the other Barrington stoke books of Lark, Brock and Pike, and captures the single-mindedness and blind rage that comes with the teenage years very well. Nicky's frustration and anger against the world is captured and the reader feels for him as he battles to control the jumble of conflicting feelings inside him.
Excellent writing from Anthony McGowan with a nice ending.… (plus d'informations)

Interesting book in that the author starts the book with the human perspective - a little girl gets a white puppy 2 days called Zoya before the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explodes and she has to leave it behind to fend for itself. The next chapter sees us following the narrative of two entirely new puppies Misha and Bratan from their perspective and its only as you keep reading that you realise that it is some years after the accident. Eventually SPOILER ALERT we come to realise that the puppie's mother is actually Zoya and she has mated with a wolf to produce these tough hybrid offspring, who face bears, humans, wolves and many other challenges in the woods around Chernobyl.
For kids who like Red Dog, Dog with Seven Names, etc. This book is at times gut wrenching and at other times super-soppy and too good to be true. One for true dog lovers.… (plus d'informations)

Part of the series of books that feature Nicky and his disabled older brother Kenny. In this one, Nicky and Kenny are fishing in a local lake when three things happen. 1. They are startled by a strange, angry man who is also fishing. 2. They lose the fishing rod when Kenny casts it across the lake onto an island. 3. Nicky sees a dead body with a gold rolex watch on the hand and knows it is the body of the man who tried to put his father in jail (Jedbo the bully from Brock's father). SPOILERS: Nicky and Kenny then set about trying to build a raft/boat to get across to the island so they can retrieve the fishing rod and the gold rolex. Nicky has the intention of selling it and helping his family out of poverty but his conscience gets the better of him and he tries to give the watch back to Jedbo the bully and tell him his father's body is in the lake but Jedbo doesn't believe him and tells him the watch is a fake. But this is all AFTER Nicky nearly drowns and is rescued by the angry man.
This one is better than Brock in that it has a more rounded moral to the story and students will find the "dead body in the lake" more appealing to read about than badgers like the first one I think.… (plus d'informations)