Books with author Lynn Reid Banks

It's Just so stupid, asking us to write our life for homework. It's not even a weekend!Alice Williamson-Stone doesn't see how she can write her life story as a class assignment. How can she fit 9 1/2 years into a couple of pages? Anyway, what's interesting in her life is not the "family and pets" stuff her teacher asked for. Her pets have died, and the only family she has is her mother. Until recently she had a beloved, interfering grandmother--Gene--but she's gone from Alice's life. Besides, as Alice discovered ages ago, she was born by accident, and that's the sort of private thing you don't write about for school. Alice does the assignment but she thinks it's pretty boring, until in doing it she discovers a need to write about her true life--the exciting, complicated, private parts.In her secret notebook, Alice begins to write her"{ilustrated} ortoblography." Alice writes about her mother's difficult early life and her determination to become a "professional single parent." She writes how Gene, her absent father's mother, came along, and how she changed Alice's life, making it richer in experience but also more complicated. And she records on going quarrels between her mother and grandmother about how to bring Alice up, which ended with the Big Row. Now Alice has just her Number One person, her mum, struggling with problems of money, career, health, where to live, and how to manage on her own--problems Alice can only deal with by writing about them. Except when she tries to help . . Lynne Reid Banks offers a compelling story of a creative child caught in the middle of a difficult, but very real and increasingly common situation. Poignant, funny, and startlingly honest, Alice-by-Accident is certain to touch the heart of any child who has ever felt different, and of any adult who has to deal with the problems of children who come by accident.

Read by the author4 hours 22 minutes, 3 cassettesIt all started with a birthday present that Omri didn't want—a small plastic Indian that was no use to him at all. But an old wooden cupboard and a special key brought his unusual toy to life, and strange and wonderful things began to happen.As Omri struggles to balance his real life in England with the characters of the Wild West of 18th century America, his incredible adventures are a fantasy beyond his wildest imagination.

Haworth Parsonage stood on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors like a rock in a tempest. Inside its cheerless rooms, six delicate children dreamed their wild and shining fantasies, bound together by a mutual passion for literature and for their beloved moors. Later, when only Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell remained,they were forced by poverty to emerge from the privacy Haworth to earn their living. For the sisters, the experience - sometimes bitter and humiliating - set them free to write their extraordinary novels. For the brother, it meant ruin.

When Omri, an English schoolboy, received an old cupboard on his birthday, he was not impressed, but he soon discovered that the cupboard had mysterious, magical powers. In The Indian in the Cupboard we will acompany Omri on his adventures with Little Bull, a tiny Indian warrior. Together they will face all kinds of dangerous situations, learn about their very different cultures, and experiences the real value of friendship.

A medieval tragedy and tale of retribution -- The Dungeon is a powerful story from a writer of great skill and potency. The setting is medieval Scotland, a land dominated by skirmishes and battles on the borders, a land of fortresses and castles in Scotland, England and Wales. We meet Bruce McLennan, a Scottish laird, a man sorely-changed by a terrible family tragedy. He is a domineering master, an uncaring landlord, a cruel man, who has his heart set on building himself a castle and a Dungeon in which to punish his enemies in the future. But while the dungeon is being built, McLennan plans a trip to the far ends of the earth. As we follow McLennan on his travels to China and beyond, we witness his buying of Peony, or Mudan, as her Chinese name is, a young girl who McLennan uses as a slave. He is uncaring, unsympathetic, as he drags her after him across the world. Gradually, knowing no other, Peony develops a kind of affection for her master. In Scotland, Peony meets Fin, a stable lad and a loving friendship develops between them. McLennan, busy fighting off enemies, uses Peony in an horrific scene in one of his battles; he looses badly and subsequently blames her. He decides to punish her by throwing her in his dungeon! then unfolds a ghastly scene where Peony kills herself, at last in control of her own destiny. McLennan dies of guilt, shame and remorse. Fin lives on, and even Peony, perhaps, in his new baby sister.

It all started with a shattering bang. Maura found herself flat on her face on the pavement. For moments there was nothing, just blackness and silence. But she knew. Once again, a bomb had exploded in the streets of Belfast. And lying beside Maura, with her face buried in her arms, was a stranger. When the other girl moved her head sharply and looked up, Maura got the strangest feeling. It was like looking in a mirror, but not exactly... 00-01 Keystone to Reading Book Award Masterlist