Books with author Melvin Burgess

Bea has started to hear and see things that no one else can – creatures, voices, visions. Then strangers visit Bea and tell her she is different: she has the rare powers of a witch. They warn her she is being hunted. Her parents think she is hallucinating and needs help. All Bea wants to do is get on with her life, and to get closer to Lars, the mysterious young man she has met at the skate park. But her life is in danger, and she must break free. The question is – who can she trust?Carnegie Medal-winner Melvin Burgess returns with a powerful, thrilling fantasy for young adults about magic, myth and following your instincts.

Billy Elliot's not like his Dad. He doesn't want to learn boxing. He's not cut out to be a miner. But when he stumbles across a ballet class and discovers he's a natural, he realises what he does want to do. This is Billy's gritty and determined struggle, at first in secret, but then with the wholehearted backing of his family, to dance his way to a different future.

Gemma:"My parents are incompetent. They haven't got a clue..."Tar: "I know it sounds stupid, but it was like the flowers had come out for Gemma..."Lily: "They did everything they could to pin me down...my mum, my dad, school..."Rob:"We stood for a while breathing big long breaths of air. It was cold and pure...You could feel it inside you, doing you good."How do these teens come to run away from home? To be users? Addicts? As their stories intertwine and build, SMACK never lets up the pace. It is a book about people, families--real and those constructed by young people with no one to turn to but each other. SMACK is a book about a drug and the hold it can have. Written directly for its audience of young people and unflinching in its honesty, SMACK is the teen book of the year.

If you gotta be a dog, be a bitch."My tail was going bananas as I rounded the corner and headed into Platt Fields park. The pavement was alive; my nose was an eye that sees into the past. I speeded up. Oh, I was in love with Terry, but to run and sniff and feel my ears catching sounds out of the air! But what do you know? Only a dog could understand what I mean."Sandra Francy is seventeen and having way too much fun. Everyone wants to stop her but the problem is, she likes it. When she accidentally gets turned into a dog she's horrified at first, but soon she starts to wonder if being human is worth the effort. Her attempts to hang on to her humanity are bizarre and often hilarious-but her life as a dog leads her to pleasures she hardly knew existed.Award-winning author Melvin Burgess brilliantly captures the realities of teenage life and hormone imbalance.

'Love. Hate. So what? This is family. This is business.'London is in ruins. The once-glorious city is now a gated wasteland cut off from the rest of the country and in the hands of two warring families – the Volsons and the Connors.Val Volson offers the hand of his young daughter, Signy, to Connor as a truce. At first the marriage seems to have been blessed by the gods, but betrayal and deceit are never far away in this violent world, and the lives of both families are soon to be changed for ever . . .'Shies from nothing, making it both cruel and magnificent' Guardian 'An epic tale of treachery, deceit, sex, torture, violence, revenge and retribution' Independent on Sunday 'Will rank along with the 20th-century classics' - Sunday TelegraphWinner of the Lancashire Book Award

PART II Fifteen-year-old Sigurd, son of King Sigmund, is the last surviving member of the Volson clan. His father's kingdom -- the former city of London -- is gone. And his father's knife, a gift from Odin himself, has been shattered to dust. Now, Odin's eye is upon him. Armed with a powerful sword forged from the remnants of his father's knife, Sigurd will face death, fire, and torment. He must travel through Hel and back...to unite his country once again.

Everyone says fourteen-year-old BILLIE is nothing but trouble. A fighter. A danger to her family and friends.But her care worker sees someone different. Her classmate ROB is big, strong; he can take care of himself and his brother.But his violent stepdad sees someone to humiliate. And CHRIS is struggling at school; he just doesn't want to be there.But his dad sees a useless no-hoper. Billie, Rob and Chris each have a story to tell. But there are two sides to every story, and the question is . . . who do you believe?

'We're the rubbish kids, losers and orphans. Everyday we go out on to the Tip to sort rubbish for Mother Shelly.'For Sham, Fly Pie and his sister Jane, this is the grim reality of their lives. Then one day everything changes when they find a baby on the Tip - a baby worth seventeen million pounds . . .This discovery takes them into a savage, lonely city and so begins an endless fight for survival.