Imprint
- Hodder Children's Books
- Hodder Children's Books
For National Curriculum Key Stage 2, For National Curriculum Key Stage 3, For National Curriculum Key Stage 4 & GCSE, Interest age: from c 9 years, Fiction, General fiction (Children's / Teenage), Family & home stories (Children's / Teenage)
Joe Maloney is out of place in this world: his mind is always somewhere else - on the weird creatures he sees around him and whispers he hears on the air. But into his world comes the circus, and Corinna, and a tiger ... A moving, mysterious and spiritual story from an extraordinary writer.
Joe lives with his mother in Helmouth, a forgotten village crumbling on the edge of the suburbs. His days are spent trying to evade the demands of school and the taunts of the local bullies. Joe's friend, Stanny, insists that Joe must toughen up, become a survivor - and he is adamant that a weekend in the wilderness with Stanny and his Uncle Joff will do the trick.
Into Joe's unhappy world comes Hackenschmidt's Circus, and with it the strangely familiar Corinna. She tells Joe, 'In the circus there is a secret heart ' - a place of contained wildness where the barriers between the human and animal world are fluid. And indeed, Joe's dreams are already stalked by a tiger, so real that his skin and its pelt begin to feel as one...
A stunning novel from the author of the modern children's classic Skellig - winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.
Praise for Secret Heart
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As readers will expect from David Almond, there's a sense of inhabiting a strange, vivid world that exists alongside the familiar, and an evocation of wonder in everyday things as well as in the extraordinary. This is a powerful addition to his highly distinctive works. - TES
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This gripping book will enrich your soul and fire your imagination. - Daily Telegraph
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An exhilarating, though not always easy read for anyone who, like Joe has tigers and larks in their hearts. - Guardian
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his best book yet ... As we have come to expect of Almond's writing, the book has a dreamlike resonance. It is a story about love, persecution, freedom and the conflict between man and beast, perceived here as a battle between machismo and a female animalism - Literary Review
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A life-changing story of hope, love and encouragement for a boy who's been all but written off. - The Sunday Times
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As readers will expect from David Almond, there's a sense of inhabiting a strange, vivid world that exists alongside the familiar, and an evocation of wonder in everyday things as well as in the extraordinary. This is a powerful addition to his highly distinctive works. - TES
-
This gripping book will enrich your soul and fire your imagination. - Daily Telegraph
-
An exhilarating, though not always easy read for anyone who, like Joe has tigers and larks in their hearts. - Guardian
David Almond
David Almond is the author of Skellig, My Name is Mina, Island, Bone Music and many other novels, stories, picture books, opera librettos, songs and plays. His work is translated into 40 languages, and is widely adapted for stage and screen. His major awards include the Carnegie Medal, two Whitbread Awards, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, the Michael L Printz Award (USA), Le Prix SorciA res (France), the Nonino International Prize, the James Kruss Prize and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. He has also won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the world's most prestigious prize for children's authors. In 2021, David was awarded an OBE for services to literature.
David speaks at festivals and conferences around the world. He is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. He is widely regarded as one of the most exciting, inspirational and innovative children's authors writing today. He has one amazing daughter. He lives in Newcastle, the city in which he was born.
www.davidalmond.com
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