My main memory of this book as a child is the discovery that one of the random passages of text you got given for 'reading comprehension questions' at school had been lifted from a Real Book, and that instead of being a strange stand alone out of context thing, it was from a complete story that no-one had bothered to give us.

The actual book isn't one of my favourite Nicholas Fisk's. Strange alien particles come down from the sky. The army want to blow them up. The children want to play with them. Are they good or bad? What should we do? The book asks the questions in an interesting way, but I find the answer at the end a bit far fetched. ( )

This book changed my life.

I know we say that about so many things in this crazy world of ours, but this book really did.

I read it when I was about 9 or 10 and it opened up my imagination to new and exciting possibilities of the kind I'd never experienced before. It's an odd little tale, of mysterious sentient jewels that fall from the sky, but it has never left me.

It was one of the pivotal experiences of my life, and has led me to becoming a children's science fiction writer myself.

I loved it then, and I love it now. ( )