Before long, he is caught in a mystery surrounding his long-lost mother.' B&W Illustrations, B&W Photographs 12mo 7' - 7' tall 201 pages. by Leon Garfield 22.99 13.29 From School Library Journal Gr 4 UpIn this collection essential, first published in 1985, Garfield relates 21 of Shakespeare's most famous works in language that is accessible but never condescending or out of spirit with the Bard's original Elizabethan text. Richly imagined and audacious in its balance of humour and suspense, the book is as absorbing as it is compelling. Orphan Jack Holborn stows away on a ship, little guessing the dangers and excitement that lie on his journey ahead. The plot is as convoluted as William’s search packed with unexpected turns, vain hopes of treasure, false clues, and masked identities… The Horn Book wrote: Narrated with the verve and pace of a picaresque novel, John Diamond combines a cast of remarkable eccentrics with superb sensory descriptions…Ī series of heart stopping pursuits through the twisting London streets, narrow escapes, encounters with the denizens of Whitefriars, Foxes Court, and Hanging Court Alley move the story at a precipitous rate toward a thoroughly satisfying and surprising resolution. First published in 1980, John Diamond won the Whitbread Award that year, as the best children’s story book, and also the prestigious Boston Globe Horn Honor Book Award.

‘Really,’ said Leon Garfield, ‘what I try to write is that old fashioned thing the family novel, accessible to the twelve year old and readable by his elders.’ This classic tale of a boy who sets out to right the wrongs committed by his swindler father demonstrates how extraordinarily successful Leon Garfield was as a story teller. If you should see a boy raise his fists as if to bang on your door and then stumble away, it is not because he’s a dirty little ruffian, but because he’s just caught sight of somebody coming round a corner with a terrible hook. He was married with a daughter and lived in North London.If ever I learned anything during that night, it was that, if you should hear the noise of running feet, you should not be angry, but think that somebody down below might be gasping and groaning and struggling to save his life. In 1981 he was nominated for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award. His books have been widely translated and have won many international and British literary awards.

After the war he worked as a hospital laboratory technician until he gave this up to devote himself to writing. His art studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served in the Army Medical Corps. Leon Garfield was born and educated in Brighton, England. Other Leon Garfield books published by Oxford University Press: Devil-in-the-Fog, Black Jack, and Mr Corbett's Ghost. Other Oxford Children's Classics: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables, Black Beauty, Flambards, Little Women, Party Shoes, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Call of the Wild, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Jungle Book, The Secret Garden, The Wind in the Willows, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Treasure Island.

Jack holborn leon garfield