The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas - Hardcover

David Almond is the highly acclaimed author of Skellig, The Savage, Clay, My Name Is Mina, My Dad's a Birdman, Slog's Dad and many other novels, stories and plays. His books are translated into almost forty languages and are widely adapted for stage and screen. His numerous awards include the Carnegie Medal, two Whitbread Children's Book Awards and Le Prix Sorcieres, and in 2010 he gained the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international prize for children's authors. David lives with his family in Hexham, Northumberland; you can find out more about him at www.davidalmond.com As a picture book creator Oliver Jeffers has been the recipient of some of children's books highest accolades, including the Nestle Gold Medal for Lost and Found and the Irish Picture Book of the Year for The Incredible Book Eating Boy. Other award-winning titles include The Way Back Home, which was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway medal. An animated film of Oliver's book Lost and Found won a BAFTA for Best Animation in 2009. Oliver was born in Belfast but now lives in New York City. This is his first book for Walker. www.oliverjeffers.com

*Starred Review* Dahl meets J. K., flavored with a soupçon of Choose Your Own Adventure, but in the end, this novel is all pure, sweet Almond. Stanley Potts has lost his parents, but his Aunt Annie and Uncle Ernest have ably stepped in. Then Uncle Ernest goes fish crazy, making a fortune by canning fish in the living room. Stanley is on board until his beloved goldfish get tinned, and he takes off. After joining a carnival, he lives with Mr. Doestesky, the hook-a-duck operator, and his daughter, Nitasha, who has been abandoned by her mother and wishes to become the world’s ugliest, fattest bearded lady. Stanley seems an ordinary boy, but those who come in contact with him sense his purity and goodness. So, when Pancho Pirelli appears to perform his great act in which he swims in a tank of piranhas, it’s no surprise that he recognizes Stanley as his successor. As with most everything Almond writes, there is the story on paper and then all that churns over and around it. This is as much a meditation on chance, choice, and destiny, as it is a frolicsome tale of a boy who runs away for a circuslike life. In the subtlest ways possible, Almond masterfully makes young readers understand this, and they will be delighted that life lessons can be administered so deliciously. Simple pencil drawings illustrate. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Almond is one of the finest writers for young people working today, which makes anything he writes something to look forward to. Grades 4-6. --Ilene Cooper