The Skylarks

Winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award. The Skylarks' War is a beautiful story following the loves and losses of a family growing up against the harsh backdrop of World War One, from the award-winning Hilary McKay. Clarry and her older brother Peter live for their summers in Cornwall, staying with their grandparents and running free with their charismatic cousin, Rupert. But normal life resumes each September – boarding school for Peter and Rupert, and a boring life for Clarry at home with her absent father, as the shadow of a terrible war looms ever closer. When Rupert goes off to fight at the front, Clarry feels their skylark summers are finally slipping away from them. Can their family survive this fearful war? 'This belongs among the classic of children’s literature . . . Funny, sad, warm, it is about growing up and finding what you love.' – The Sunday Times, Children’s Book of the Week

'A thoughtful and passionate memoir, moving and respectful' Tessa Hadley Huw Lewis was born in Merthyr in 1964. His father an engineer at the Hoover factory, his mother first a housewife then a nurse. He has two older sisters and a younger brother, they were all brought up in the village of Aberfan in south Wales. To Hear the Skylark's Song is a memoir about how Aberfan survived and eventually thrived after the terrible disaster of the 21st of October 1966, when Pantglas school took the full force of thousands of tons of colliery waste and a community lost a generation of children. It is a story about how people held a community together and created a space for each other to thrive. It is also a wonderfully thoughtful and insightful story of what it was like to grow up in a Valley's community in the 70s: a thriving place of people, shops, clubs, chapel concerts, coal mines, interwoven with gossip and stories and, of course, the annual bus trip to Barry Island. Aberfan found a way to carry on, and Huw vividly brings to life how the sense of community provided strength and comfort in the shadow of a lifetime-long grief. A community that continues to innovate and inspire.

‘The Skylarks’ transports us to a little hamlet hidden away in the mountainous region of the south of Granada, Spain: such a small town that no one ever bothered naming it and was simply known as La Villa. It’s the start of the 1970s and the locals are doing all they can to combat the mass exodus of the rural areas. Far from the harsh reality of the adults, three boys; Ricardo, Edmundo and Fernando, live life from one mischief to the next or spending time acting out scenes from their favourite comic, Capitán Trueno. Everything changes with the arrival of Lucy Lu, a new girl who shakes the foundations of their world and puts their friendship to the test. The boys, each guided by their own interests, embark on a dangerous game which will lead them to take bigger and bigger risks to try and come out on top. As the months go by, the three youngsters learn that love isn't always easy, sex isn't always enjoyable, death isn't just for the elderly, evil resides inside many and, most of all, that even lifelong friendships can come to an end. Twenty years later, two of the boys meet again. One of them has a successful career as a Guardia Civil. The other has come back to La Villa, living alone and tormented by regrets. Beside the warmth of the fireplace, the two spend the whole night reminiscing about the last few months they spent together living in La Villa. What happened that year? Why did their friendship fall apart? A reunion that the old friends reveal more from what they don't say than what they do. A contemporary fable where the characters live through the good and the bad, wrapped up in the atmosphere of a place that is fighting its own disappearance. A novel about learning told from the perspective of the three boys that takes us back to our own childhood.

Kosztolanyi's Skylark is a portrait of provincial life in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy at the turn of the century. Set in the autumn of 1899, it focuses on one extraordinary week in the otherwise uneventful lives of an elderly Hungarian couple and their ugly spinster daughter, Skylark.

In the sequel to Skylark, Lark finally manages to find her brother. Against all odds, hes alivebut the reality and implications of his survival are too horrible for Lark to comprehend, if she lives long enough to think about it.

As spring arrives, Stephen Moss’s Somerset garden is awash with birdsong: chiffchaffs, wrens, robins and more. Overhead, buzzards soar, ravens tumble and the season gathers pace. But this equinox is unlike any other. As the nation goes into lockdown, Stephen records the wildlife around his home, with his fox-red Labrador, Rosie, by his side. When old routines fall away, and blue skies are no longer crisscrossed by contrails, they discover the bumblebees, butterflies and birdsong on their local patch. This evocative account underlines how a global crisis changed the way we relate to the natural world, giving us hope for the future. And it puts down a marker for a new normal: when, during that brief but unforgettable spring, nature gave us comfort, hope and joy.

It is 1939. When Lyla is evacuated from her home in London to her great-aunt’s enormous house in the West Country, she expects to be lonely. She has never been to school nor had any friends, and her parents have been at the centre of a scandal. But with the house being used to accommodate an entire school of evacuated schoolgirls, there's no time to think about her old life. Soon there is a horse in a first-floor bedroom and a ferret in Lyla’s sock drawer, hordes of schoolgirls have overrun the house, and Lyla finds out that friends come in all shapes and sizes.

A Boston Globe Best Book of 2018 A Horn Book Best Book of 2018 “Vivid, hilarious, and heartbreaking.” —Elizabeth Wein, New York Times bestselling author of Code Name Verity “The best children’s book I’ve read this year.” —Katherine Rundell, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award–winning author of Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms “A near-miraculous balance of light and joyous touch with sometimes serious and even heartbreaking material.” —BCCB (starred review) From award-winning author Hilary McKay comes a “wholly satisfying” (Booklist, starred review) story full of wit, heartbreak, and hope as a girl fights for her independence during World War I. Clarry Penrose finds the good in everyone. Even in her father, who isn’t fond of children, and especially girls. He doesn’t worry about her education, because he knows she won’t need it. It’s the early twentieth century, and the only thing girls are expected to do is behave. But Clarry longs for a life of her own. She wants to dive off cliffs and go swimming with her brother Peter and cousin Rupert. And more than anything, she wants an education. She helps Peter with his homework all the time, so why can’t she manage it by herself? When war breaks out, Clarry is shocked to find that Rupert has enlisted. Then he is declared missing, and Clarry is devastated. Now she must take a momentous step into the wide world—for if she misses this chance, she may never make it. This is an inspirational, funny, and heartwarming story about a girl who dares to open doors that the world would rather keep closed.

Karen Gregory's heartfelt, thought-provoking second novel about love against the odds is perfect for readers of Lisa Williamson, Sara Barnard and Sarah Crossan. 'We watch the bird as it flies high above us, singing like it's the only thing in the world that matters. And I feel it – that life can be beautiful. That there are possibilities.' Keep your head down and don't borrow trouble is the motto Joni lives by, and so far it's seen her family through some tough times. It's not as if she has the power to change anything important anyway. Like Dad's bad back, or the threat of losing their house. So when Annabel breezes into her life, Joni's sure they're destined to clash. Pretty, poised, privileged – the daughter of the richest family in town must have it easy. But sometimes you find a matching spirit where you least expect it. Sometimes love can defy difference. And sometimes life asks you to be bigger and braver ... Praise for Karen Gregory's debut, Countless: 'A heartbreaking, hopeful and highly unusual debut' – Metro 'Proving that human resilience may wilt, but it will never die' – United by Pop

“Like All the Light We Cannot See, The Paris Hours explores the brutality of war and its lingering effects with cinematic intensity. The ending will leave you breathless.” —Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train and A Piece of the World One day in the City of Light. One night in search of lost time. Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city’s most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they’ve lost. Camille was the maid of Marcel Proust, and she has a secret: when she was asked to burn her employer’s notebooks, she saved one for herself. Now she is desperate to find it before her betrayal is revealed. Souren, an Armenian refugee, performs puppet shows for children that are nothing like the fairy tales they expect. Lovesick artist Guillaume is down on his luck and running from a debt he cannot repay—but when Gertrude Stein walks into his studio, he wonders if this is the day everything could change. And Jean-Paul is a journalist who tells other people’s stories, because his own is too painful to tell. When the quartet’s paths finally cross in an unforgettable climax, each discovers if they will find what they are looking for. Told over the course of a single day in 1927, The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit.