The Summer We Turned Green

Description

It's the summer holidays, and thirteen-year-old Luke has just had his life turned upside down. First his older sister Rose moved 'across the road' - where a community of climate rebels are protesting the planned airport expansion - and now his dad's gone too. Dad only went to get Rose back, but he's out there building totem poles out of old furniture and wearing sandals and drinking mead (whatever that is) with the best of them ... Luke is determined to save his dad, his sister AND his summer. So how does he find himself at the top of a tree refusing to leave until the bulldozers stand down? A fresh, funny, heartfelt look at this generation's must-win battle: one earth, one chance.

William Sutcliffe is the author of thirteen novels, including the international bestseller Are You Experienced? and The Wall, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He has written for adults, young adults and children, and has been translated into 28 languages. His 2008 novel Whatever Makes You Happy is now a Netflix Original film starring Patricia Arquette and Angela Bassett. It was released under the title Otherhood. His first funny novel for teenagers, The Gifted, the Talented and Me, was described by The Times as 'dangerously funny' and by the Guardian as 'refreshingly hilarious'. It was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize 2020 and was the Sunday Times Children's Book of the Year 2019.

Dangerously funny ... Sutcliffe is gifted and talented. I hope the prizes flood in * Alex O'Connell, The Times Children's Book of the Week on THE GIFTED, THE TALENTED AND ME * So, so funny and recognisable - I immediately forced it on my 14-year-old * Jenny Colgan, Sunday Times bestselling author, on THE GIFTED, THE TALENTED AND ME * What a wonderful book! It made me chortle, and I never chortle. So, so refreshing and charming and believable. I loved this book * Max Porter, award-winning author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, on THE GIFTED, THE TALENTED AND ME * The Gifted, the Talented and Me made me cry with laughter. A comic novel like this is a gift to the nation, and Will Sutcliffe's teenage Sam, struggling to adapt as his family moves to privileged, pretentious Hampstead and enrols him in a progressive London school is the best book he has written for a decade. He, David Nicholls and Joe Dunthorne are part of a tradition that goes back to PG Wodehouse, and which has never been more needed by readers young and old * Amanda Craig, journalist and author of The Lie of the Land, on THE GIFTED, THE TALENTED AND ME *