Amelia (16 page)

Siobhán Parkinson is one of the most highly acclaimed children’s writers in Ireland. She has won numerous awards and her books have been translated into several languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Danish. Siobhán lives in Dublin with her husband Roger, a woodturner, and their son Matthew, Siobhán’s personal literary critic.

For younger readers

Cows are Vegetarians

Animals Don't Have Ghosts

The Leprechaun Who Wished He Wasn't

For older readers

No Peace for Amelia

Sisters … no way!

Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows, One Witch (maybe)

The Moon King

Call of the Whales

The Love Bean

Breaking the Wishbone

OTHER BOOKS BY
SIOBHÁN PARKINSON

NO PEACE FOR AMELIA
When Frederick enlists for the war in Europe, the pacifist Quaker community is shocked, but Amelia is secretly proud of her hero and goes to the quayside to wave him farewell. For her friend Mary Ann, there are problems too, with her brother’s involvement in the Easter Rising. What will become of the two young men and what effect will it have on the lives of Amelia and Mary Ann?

THE MOON KING
Ricky is put in a foster home that is full of sunshine, laughter and children of all ages. But Ricky has withdrawn from the world; the only words he speaks are in his mind. He has lost the ability to become part of family life. Then he finds an unusual chair in the attic, which becomes his special place. In his chair he becomes the Moon King and finds some sense of power and inner peace. From this situation relationships slowly begin to grow, but it is not a smooth path and at times Ricky just wants to leave it all behind …

FOUR KIDS, THREE CATS, TWO COWS, ONE WITCH (MAYBE)
BEVERLEY
:
the bossy one, stuck up and fussy.
ELIZABETH
:
easy-going, a bit of a dreamer.

KEVIN
:
a good-looker and cool dude.

GERARD
:
takes his cat everywhere, and is barely tolerated by the girls.

THREE CATS
:
well, there’s Gerard’s Fat Cat, ‘Fat’ for short. And then there are the two Pappagenos.

TWO COWS
:
what are
they
doing in this story?

ONE WITCH
:
(maybe) well, is she or isn’t she? Kevin seems to know but he’s not telling. And what
is
a witch anyway? The four, plus cat, set out for Lady Island, hoping for adventure, maybe even a little danger. But nothing prepares them for their encounter with the eccentric Dymhpna and the strange events that follow.

BREAKING THE WISHBONE
A group of teenagers, adrift from their families, scraping together a makeshift home in the House that Everyone Forgot. According to Johnner, it’s like camping, like being on your holidays all the time. But then Johnner’s just a kid. They find out soon enough, all of them, just how harsh life is when you’re young, poor and homeless. The reality of living rough in a Dublin squat presents them with more difficult challenges in their already troubled lives.

SISTERS … NO WAY!
WINNER Bisto Book of the Year Award
A flipper book

When Cindy’s father becomes involved with Ashling and Alva’s mother, all hell breaks loose. No way will these three ever call each other sisters.

CINDY:
if her father thinks he can just swan off and actually marry one of her
teachers
, Cindy will show him! But worse than that are her two daughters – so prissy and boring! It’s gross!

ASHLING:
if only her mother could find a nice man – but the new man in Ashling’s mother’s life comes with a dreadful daughter, the noxious Cindy, arch-snob and ultra opinionated.

‘Extremely clever … Much insight and good humour … teenage fiction at its most sophisticated’
CHILDRENS BOOKS IN IRELAND

CALL OF THE WHALES
Over three summers, Tyke journeys with his anthropologist father to the remote and icy wilderness of the Arctic. Each summer brings short, intense friendships with the Eskimos, and adventures ‘which Mum doesn’t need to know about’. Tyke is saved from drowning and hypothermia, joins a bowhead whale hunt, rescues his new-found Eskimo friend, Henry, from being swept away on an ice floe, and witnesses the death of innocence with the killing of the narwhal or sea unicorn. A story that will echo in the mind long after the Northern Lights have faded from the final chapters.

THE LOVE BEAN
Twins: they like the same things. But that can cause problems. Especially where boys are concerned. When Tito, a tall handsome African, walks into the lives of Lydia and Julia, it turns every relationship upside down. Then there’s the ‘twinny book’ –
The Curiosity Tree
. It’s about Sun’va and Eva: they’re twins too. And a boy has just sailed into
their
lives, causing havoc. Romance mirrors romance, jealousy mirrors jealousy – it seems like history is repeating itself.

CHILDREN OF THE FAMINE
TRILOGY

UNDER THE HAWTHORN TREE
Marita Conlon-McKenna
Illus. Donald Teskey

Eily, Michael and Peggy are left without parents when the Great Famine strikes. They set out on a long and dangerous journey to find the great-aunts their mother told them about in her stories.

WILDFLOWER GIRL
Marita Conlon-McKenna
Illus. Donald Teskey

Peggy, from
Under the Hawthorn Tree
, is now thirteen and must leave Ireland for America. After a terrible journey on board ship, she arrives in Boston. What kind of life will she find there?