Digory is a sweet boy, although he doesn't exactly appreciate the same things as his rambunctious brothers or blacksmith mother. He likes playing the flute, thinking interesting thoughts, and writing silly songs. But all this changes one day when Digory discovers a dragon's tooth in the forest. When he returns to the village to show off his treasure, everyone assumes Digory slayed a dragon! Can Digory still be a normal, non-dragon-slaying boy now that he's been mistaken for a hero? The story of a shy, funny-looking village boy who finds himself rescuing princesses, fighting dragons, and living happily ever after. Reviews "Beck's rumpled drawings and vignettes add more amiably comic touches. Ready cheeks; insert tongues." -Kirkus Reviews "In this affectionate send-up of heroic fantasy, Digory is a reluctant knight who gamely tries to live up to the role of dauntless hero, while Enid is a refreshingly independent princess. The amusing black-and-white drawings add to the mock-medieval fun. The lighthearted plot and the strong underlying message about courage and individuality make this a good choice for fantasy fans."-School Library Journal About the Author Angela McAllister has written a dozen books for Bloomsbury, including Barkus, Sly and the Golden Egg, The Little Blue Rabbit and Trust Me, Mom! She has two children and lives in England. About the Illustrator Ian Beck is a prolific illustrator who created the cover for Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. His books for children include versions of Peter and the Wolf and many fairy tales. He lives in England.
Discover the Australian novelist ranked by Ladbrokes as a top-five contender for the 2010 Nobel Prize. Barley Patch takes as its subject the reasons an author might abandon fiction—or so he thinks—forever. Using the form of an oblique self-interrogation, it begins with the Beckettian question “Must I write?” and proceeds to expand from this small, personal query to fill in the details of a landscape entirely unique in world letters, a chronicle of the images from life and fiction that have endured and mingled in the author’s mind, as well as the details (and details within details) that they contain. As interested, if not more so, in the characters from his books—finished or unfinished—as with the members of his family or his daily life, the narrator lays bare the act of writing and imagining, finally giving us a glimpse of the mythical place where the characters of fiction dwell before they come into existence in books. In the spirit of Italo Calvino and Georges Perec, Barley Patch is like no other fiction being written today.