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Teenage
books
IN THE BLOOD
(Hodder Children's Books. ISBN 0-340-86653-5)
Gilbert, in a distressed state, is wandering over the countryside and his grandson,
Rigby, has set out to find him. He is helped by pencilled marks on an out of
date map he has found in Gilbert's house. As he searches, his route is frequently
crossed by Watkins, a boy in his year at school, who is kitted out in combat
gear and on a twenty four hour solo exercise that his fitness-obsessed and autocratic
father has devised for him.
At the places circled on the map, Rigby discovers objects that his grandfather
has left there; they are rememberances of the time when Gilbert was conscripted
to fight in the second world war. Also he finds, among Gilbert's belongings,
an account of his first experience of warfare--the D-Day landings in Normandy.
This not only describes the shock and reality of fighting; it also records his
friendship with another soldier who 'did not come out of the regular mould.'
Something of their unequal relationship is echoed in Rigby's own irritated, dismissive
attitude to Watkins.
Following the map and reading Gilbert's journal, Rigby is drawn into the experience
of these two young men, their fatigue, endurance, fear; their knowledge of blood
and death.
Then, as he comes across other evidence from their past, Rigby's desperation
to find his grandfather increases. And he knows that his search is no longer
simply for Gilbert; it is also for the other soldier, the one called Rufe.
To read an extract from In the Blood and author's comments, click here
In
the Blood can
be purchased at most bookshops
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here to buy at www.amazon.co.uk
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here to buy at www.countrybookshop.co.uk
SMOKE
TRAIL(Hodder Children's Books. ISBN 0 340 81808 5)
Cora lives in a hamlet in the Yorkshire dales. She is happy with her mother and grandmother but longs to meet her father who abandoned them. A number of peculiar happenings in the neighbourhood and the sighting of a strange man convince her that her father, too, would like them to meet. So she begins to search for this stranger, even leaving little gifts and family mementos to lure him to show himself. But, knowing that her mother and grandmother would not approve of this, and unable to confide in her very rational friend, Emma, she is compelled to work in secret. When she finally achieves her goal, she is faced with a cruel and unimagined choice.
| A powerful new novel by June Oldham....set against the northern landscape of harsh, rugged moors, Cora's determination leads her towards some harsh but healing truths. Oldham weaves a gripping narrative with evocative, lyrical prose. This is a memorable psychological drama. |
|
The
Times Educational Supplement
|
To
read an extract from Smoke Trail and author's comments,
click here
Smoke Trail can be purchased at most bookshops
click
here to buy at www.amazon.co.uk
click
here to buy at www.countrybookshop.co.uk
UNDERCURRENTS(Hodder Children's Books ISBN 0340 65147 4)
It is a
hot, parched summer and Fergal has accompanied his mother to a farm in
Yorkshire where she is temporarily employed to look after the bedridden
owner, Mrs. Helliwell. Though willing to help Madge, Fergal has a private
reason for offering to go with her: he thinks a new place might block
out thoughts of a recent, terrible experience.
Very soon he becomes aware that Mrs. Helliwell and everyone in the neighbourhood
have fears, too; these seem to be connected with the reservoir close by.
Apprehensive, they are watching the level of the water as the heat dries
it up. Like Fergal, they guard their secret. Someone else, unknown and
elusive, is equally obsessed with the disappearing reservoir. She is Alex,
living rough as she waits for what it will reveal.
While the drought continues and the drowned village begins to reach out
of the water, Fergal pieces together scraps of information and inexplicable
events. When the crisis comes he discovers that he can conquer his terrors
as he intercedes for Mrs. Helliwell and saves Alex's life.
| June Oldham deploys her impressive powers of description and insightful portrayal of character in a highly charged story about revelation and twisted relationships. Her intimate knowledge of the Yorkshire landscape comes into full force in Undercurrents as the elemental nature of hill and dale forms a backdrop to a chilling story of a village forced to face its past.......Oldham is a thrilling writer. Her prose is uncluttered, poised, precise and evocative. She has an eye for the idiosyncratic and builds suspense through an odd series of characters and happenings. This is a fine novel. Though the pace does not slacken and the tension builds to the end, it is full of reflection |
|
The
Times Educational Supplement
|
To
read an extract from Undercurrents and author's comments,
click here
Undercurrents can be purchased at most bookshops
click
here to buy at www.amazon.co.uk
click
here to buy at www.countrybookshop.co.uk
ESCAPE(Hodder Children's Books ISBN 0340 68724 X )
Magdalen appears to have everything: a good home, friends, academic success,
a doting and generous father. But the truth is very different; the home
is a prison that holds fear, confusion and shame, the cancer of incest.
Gaining entrance to a distant university, Magdalen believes that at last
she will get away from her father until she learns how he plans to retain
his dominance over her. In despair, she attempts suicide but is saved
by Greg whom she has recently met.With a borrowed car he takes her away.
As they travel Magdalen continues to write her personal story; it has
the form of a fairy tale in which she traces her relationship with her
king-monster-father and its effects upon her.
Her trust in Greg develops, helping her to confide in him, and through
his understanding and her own courage she is able to take the first step
towards destroying her father's power.
| There are some subjects that challenge a writer beyond belief. Escape by June Oldham tackles incest with grace, honesty and skill. |
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Oxford
Times
|
| An engrossing and deeply moving book that offers no easy answers. |
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Books
for Keeps.
|
| This is a really moving book about a girl trying to get out of an incestuous relationship with her father. A real page turner--recommended. |
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Mizz
Magazine
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| The factual side of Magdalen's life is told in plain prose, but it is wrapped around another story, written by Magdalen as if it were a fairy tale. In the inner story a princess is visited by a beast.........the real stuff of nightmares, an incestuous father. ...This is a powerfully told story of bravery and survival. |
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Daily
Telegraph
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| What is very clear from the novel is the way in which this kind of abuse damages the individual and continues to dominate her life for years after. Although Greg, the stranger, becomes her confidant, who gives her hope and freedom, there remains the sense at the end of the novel that she still has a very long way to go before her life can become her own. A major part of this book revolves around control and the struggle to reclaim an identity after years of domination. .......Escape is a book that demands to be read and which certainly offers a glimpse of hope on many personal levels, whatever the age of the reader. |
|
Ilkley
Gazette
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To read an extract from Escape and author's comments, click here
Escape can be purchased at most bookshops
click
here to buy at www.amazon.co.uk
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here to buy at www.countrybookshop.co.uk
FOUNDLING(Hodder Children's Books ISBN 0-340-63478-2 )
The time is the twenty-first century
when the countryside is almost deserted,
when people work at computers in living-work units,
and those without work live on the streets,
when in the living-work units there is a tax on excess children,
and when the street people are hounded by patrols.
Then some seek other
places, passing through
the wide dales
and over the high fells.
And one late autumn,
two fleeing from the towns
--and fearing pursuit---
make an unexpected discovery.
They are joined by two other travellers,
and the four remain together
through new perils and threats.
This is their story
It begins with the smallest of them. Called Ren.
Ren has
been forced to leave home because her pregnant mother cannot pay the tax
on excess children; if patrolmen find Ren, they will place her in a Surplus
Children Unit. Patrolmen are an equal danger to Lil for she is an escaped
street person. Brocket, brought up by an old fell woman, Annie Gimmer,
runs no such risks; his fears come from the superstitions and stories
that belong to the moors. Hilary is there because he wishes to complete
the work of his dead father, a geologist, for whom he grieves.
These four join forces when Brocket discovers a fifth person. They call
her Found. She is a baby who has been dumped. From then on their troubles
and anxieties are secondary to caring for Found although this brings them
into dangers that challenge their ingenuity, courage and strength.
| This is an extraordinary story of survival, co-operation and tension as they learn, painfully, to trust and care for each other in an unforgiving landscape, up against an unseen and unknowable enemy. Absolutely absorbing. |
|
Young
Book Trust. 100 best books, 1996
|
| A riveting novel. |
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Kirkus
Review
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| The haunting strangeness of the setting, the power of Oldham's language and imagery, and the emotional immediacy of the characters' situation will remain indelibly in readers' memories. |
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Book
List. (USA)
|
| In this unusual survival story four children--each orphaned, abandoned or unwanted--join forces to save an abandoned baby from a dual threat...The sharply focused novel explores the profound effect the short series of events has on each individual's life and stresses the importance of friendship and community. |
|
Horn
Books (USA)
|
To
read an extract from Foundling and author's comments,
click here
Foundling can be purchased at most bookshops
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here to buy at www.amazon.co.uk
click
here to buy at www.countrybookshop.co.uk
THE
RAVEN WAITS(Hodder Children's Books ISBN 0 340 79211 6)
This book is set in the kingdom of the Scyldings in Denmark, at a time of overwhelming crisis. The kingdom has been terrorised for twelve long years by the visits of a murderous, blood-thirsty creature, Grendel. Against his attacks the warriors are powerless, losing one of their number every time he strikes.
The king is immobilised by fear, grief, and guilt at his inability to deal with this foe and his court is also disturbed by the intrigues of the king's nephew who seeks to seize the throne.
Hope is revived by the arrival of Beowulf, a famous and formidable warrior. Boastful and scorning the fear of the court, he offers to fight Grendel alone and unarmed. The ensuing fight is lengthy, terrible, but not quite finished. For Grendel has an horrendous and vengeful mother, and as Beowulf faces this greater challenge, the political instability of the court erupts.
The Raven
Waits was first published by Abelard-Schuman twenty years ago.
| The Raven Waits offers an unusual rendering of the Beowulf story, notable for superbly evoked landscape and a crushing atmosphere of menace. |
|
The
Guardian
|
| This book I found frankly astonishing....The whole book is marvellous but the end, where the hero emerges from fighting Grendel's mother in a kind of cesspool takes on a mythical and psychological dimension. It's a real shocker but it's also first rate literature. |
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Yorkshire
Arts Association magazine
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| Writing of an unusual quality conjures forth an atmosphere of heavy dread in which it is not easy for courage to flourish. A considerable achievement. |
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Bradford
Telegraph & Argus
|
| It comes as a relief to read a really imaginative re-telling of "Beowulf". |
|
Glasgow
Herald
|
| This grisly ancient science fiction tale ......is told with terrific verve and masses of atmospheric detail. You can almost feel the chill of superstitious fear among those mists and bogs of primitive times. I enjoyed its cleverness. |
|
Yorkshire
Life magazine
|
To read an extract from The Raven Waits and author's comments, click here
The Raven Waits can be purchased at most bookshops
click
here to buy at www.amazon.co.uk
click
here to buy at www.countrybookshop.co.uk
| ENTER
TOM (Viking Kestrel ISBN 0-670-81000-2) When he becomes infatuated by the new Physics mistress, Tom's life is thrown into chaos and, frequently, farce. But the elusive Jonquil is not Tom's only problem. He is harassed by other women, 'a whole coven of them.' There is Liz for whom he baby-sits, Julia whose ambition is to be an actress, Kate, and his feminist mother who attempts to train him to be a suitable husband for a liberated woman.
|
 |
click here to order a signed copy from Greenroom Books
| DOUBLE
TAKE (Viking Kestrel ISBN 0-670-82088-1) A
young actress is employed to take part in a television news item
reconstructing the disappearance of a woman and a girl, Rita Dale.
'It wasn't a part,' Olivia insists. 'I was there merely as the look-alike
of another woman. The whole thing was a non-event.'
|
 |
| Author's
comments I do not regard this book as a thriller but it is a mystery. The idea for it came when an actor friend appeared in Crime Watch as a man suspected of murder. I thought: What if, later, viewers were to identify him as the real murderer? Some people do find it difficult to distinguish between actors and the parts they play. At the end of Double Take, though, Olivia attains such empathy that she speaks as the missing woman, Elizabeth Drew. If anyone has comments or queries on Double Take I should love to hear them. |
click here to order a signed copy from Greenroom Books
MOVING IN
(Viking Kestrel ISBN 0-670-81007-X)
| In broad, British comedy style, Oldham's story of seventeen year old Ellen's attempt to set up a home for herself in her last year of high school combines farce and wicked parody with a wry, sophisticated wit and a parade of minor characters--- as earnest as they are eccentric. |
|
Book
List US
|
| Author's
comments Having failed to open a can with a hammer and gimlet, Ellen says, 'You'll probably not believe this, but I can be amazingly inept.' To check the capacity for belief of my American publisher, I explained, correctly, that I had based Ellen's ineptitude on my own. His answer was: 'Impossible!' That was before we met. |
GROW UP, CUPID
(Viking Kestrel ISBN 0-670-81003-7)
Studying for A levels at the Nathaniel Chubb College of Further Education, Mog (Margaret Dermot) employs her boundless energy in re-organising it and writing a romantic novel for Cupid Books.
| Satire, irony and bouncing, cackling humour go surprisingly well together in Grow Up, Cupid....A splendidly rumbustious heroine. |
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Growing
Point
|
| This highly entertaining and tactfully instructive book makes compelling reading and should provide considerable pleasure to teenagers of either sex. |
|
British
Book News
|
WRAGGLE
TAGGLE WAR
(Abelard-Schuman 0 200 72514 9)
Early in the second world war a small gang of boys suspect that a girl,
Madge, who has been evacuated to their village, is a German spy. They
have heard her talk in German to a prisoner at the nearby prisoner of
war camp and she has been billeted on an old woman, a recluse, who receives
inexplicable parcels. Their leader, Buck, is convinced that the prisoners
plan a break-out when the expected invasion of England occurs, so the
gang set out to defend their village. They raid an ammunition dump and
attempt to extract a confession from Madge. But they have ignored their
running feud with the evacuee boys and soon the gang's warfare grows real
in a shocking way they had not planned.
| This gritty tale set in Lincolnshire during the last war is thoroughly gripping and believable....these kids have nothing to learn from the Thought Police or the Nazi S.S.... a fine introduction to the notion of Irony, this is an exciting story. |
|
Times
Educational Supplement
|
| Author's
comments Wraggle Taggle War is my first full length novel to be published and is set in the village where I was brought up. Until I was ten I went to school there, taught by my mother. Unfortunately the book is now out of print, but can be borrowed from some libraries. |
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