I’ve come to know them better than any of the hundreds of characters I’ve created over the years, and I felt an obligation to them. The walk starts out as a 'lark' but gradually their situation becomes more and more dangerous, particularly when snow starts to fall.

But Nicky is inexperienced and underestimates the dangers involved; it's a lot of responsibility to load onto his shoulders. Jittery with nerves, the boys need a pre-meeting distraction,and when Dad reminisces about his childhood escapades on the moors, they decide to plan their own rural adventure. Certainly at around the time Barrington Stoke launched, I remember that the portrait photo style of jacket was particularly popular.But each time I typed ‘The End’ I had a feeling that somehow Nicky and Kenny’s story was unfinished. Taking their rescue dog Tina with them, Nicky plans to distract Kenny from the up and coming visit from their estranged mother through a little adventure on the moors.

Things are getting tense at home for Nicky and Kenny as they wait for a visit from their estranged mum. This is the first book we’ve read by this author, although I now understand there are others involving the same characters which we’d definitely be interested in. I also loved that book and thought it would have been a worthy winner, but I’m particularly interested in Lark‘s win because its physical presentation marks something of a turning point in Barrington Stoke’s presentation of its books. A powerful and gripping wartime tale set in the Cumbrian countryside from multi-award-winning Tom Palmer, with stunning cover by Tom Clohosy Cole. I understand the vernacular used was to mimic the speech of teenage boys, but when my son read 'dig up dead bodies to have it off with', he googled have it off with so he could understand the whole sentence.is that like Henry Tumour, which also deals with a very difficult subject, it isn't relentlessly serious, but clever and darkly funny. Ross Welford introduces Time Travelling with a Tortoise, the sequel to Time Travelling with a Hamster, and a whole new time travel adventure! The last of a quartet of novellas composed for readers with reading difficulties, Lark is not only perfectly relatable as a standalone but is also testament to the fact that 'simple' writing needn't be simplistic, nor does it exclude moments of beauty and emotion. Although part of this heart-wrenching series, Lark is a gut-punching stand-alone novel perfect for reluctant readers and dyslexic readers alike, with a reading age of 9 and an interest age of 13+.