LoveReading Says
Shortlisted for the Nasen and TES 'Special Educational Needs Children's Book Award' 2007.
When Salim mysteriously disappears while on a ride on the London Eye everyone is frantic and even the police are baffled. Ted has his own theories, and his own very particular way of working things out. The question is, is his theory right and will the others listen to him?
Lovereading comment:
This may only be Siobhan Dowd’s second novel but it’s clear her talent as a superb storyteller is beyond question. Her first novel
A Swift Pure Cry was shortlisted for nearly all the major awards last year and although this second novel is very different it has that same page-turner feeling to it. It’s a beautifully written mystery set in Manchester and London and featuring two young boys, one of whom disappears on the London Eye shortly before he’s due to emigrate to the US with his mother.
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About Siobhan Dowd
Siobhan Dowd was born to Irish parents and brought up in London. She spent much of her youth visiting the family cottage in Aglish, County Waterford and later the family home in Wicklow Town.
She attended a Catholic grammar school in south London and then gained a degree in Classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. After a short stint in publishing, she joined the writer's organisation PEN, initially as a researcher for its Writers in Prison Committee.
She went on to be Program Director of PEN American Center's Freedom-to-Write Committee in New York City. Her work here included founding and leading the Rushdie Defense Committee USA and travelling to Indonesia and Guatemala to investigate local human rights conditions for writers. During her seven-year spell in New York, Siobhan was named one of the "top 100 Irish-Americans" by Irish-America Magazine and AerLingus, for her global anti-censorship work. On her return to the UK, Siobhan co-founded English PEN's readers and writers programme, which takes authors into schools in socially deprived areas, as well as prisons, young offender's institutions and community projects.
During 2004, Siobhan served as Deputy Commissioner for Children's Rights in Oxfordshire, working with local government to ensure that statutory services affecting children's lives conform with UN protocols.
A Swift Pure Cry, Siobhan's first novel, was published by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, in March 2006. In May 2007, it won the Eilis Dillon award in Ireland for a first-time children's author. It was also long-listed for the Guardian Children's Book Prize and short-listed for the Booktrust Teenage Fiction Prize and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize.
In May 2007, Siobhan was named one of "25 authors of the future" by Waterstones Books as part of the latter's 25th anniversary celebrations. Siobhan died on 21st August 2007 aged 47. She had been receiving treatment for advanced breast cancer for 3 years and, did not go gentle into that good night.
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