Bad Dreams

Description

A gripping tale of real life and story-lives - and of the importance of being free to be yourself. From one of today's top children's authors, multi-awardwinning Anne Fine 'I adore stories in which people have weird dreams, and strange things happen. But that's in books. Real life is supposed to be real, and I like my world to be solid around me . . . ' Mel is the class bookworm. She prefers books to people and doesn't want - or need - friends. She certainly doesn't want to be first-week minder for new girl, Imogen. And Imogen is odd. Slowly, Mel discovers that Imogen has a special talent - a family 'gift' that Mel thinks is more like a curse. And that's when she realizes that stories can happen in real life, too. For only she can stop Imogen's private horror story - stop the bad dreams . . .

Anne Fine has been an acknowledged top author in the children's book world since her first book was published in the mid l970s, and has now written more than forty books and won virtually every major award going, including the Carnegie Medal (more than once), the Whitbread Children's Award, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize and others. The Children's Laureate from 2001-2003, Anne is also very funny and young readers love her lack of hypocrisy about the family and her honesty about how people can behave. She lives in the North-East. 'One of the sharpest and most humorous observers of the human condition writing today for the young' School Librarian 'She is translated into 26 languages and has regularly won every major children's literary award in the land, including the Carnegie Medal twice and the Whitbread Children's Novel award twice . . . There are few more influential, or more unfailingly intelligent, authors at work' Scotsman 'A subversively wicked gift for exploring family tensions' Independent

A spirited defence of individuality. An enthusiatic advertisement for the delights of reading * Literary Review * A beautifully plotted, well-told mix of fantasy thriller and closely observed school drama * Telegraph * A fast and compelling tale * Independent *