Swanshurst School

proudly presents ….

A visit by acclaimed author

Marcus

Sedgwick

Marcus Sedgwick Competition

Imagine you are a character, real or imagined, from some point in the future, present or the

past and write 7 diary entries. The diary entries can be all from one day, a week, a month or

even over several years. They can tell of exciting or traumatic experiences or tell a story. The

choice is yours.

So, are you a Vampire in feudal Japan; a robot on Mars in 2150; a soldier in England during the Battle of Hastings: an X Factor contestant; a girl

growing up in Palestine or Queen Elizabeth I meeting Shakespeare.’ YOU decide.

Get more details from Upper Library NOW.

Closing Date: 28th November.

Open to all years.

Get writing!

The new novel is out!

What would you sacrifice for someone you've loved forever - told in seven parts and spanning ten centuries, Midwinterblood is a cleverly constructed, beautifully crafted love story with elements of a thriller and the supernatural.

What the critics are saying "Midwinterblood contains much that is riveting, strange and darkly enchanting. I read it in a single feverish sitting, late one evening, and drifted to sleep haunted by its vision of love and fate and history." (Anthony McGowan THE GUARDIAN ) "Midwinterblood is everything I have come to expect from a Marcus Sedgwick book. It's creepy, clever and keeps with you long after you finish reading it. Oh and you need to read every page before the whole thing finally clicks into place and fully makes sense." (THE OVERFLOWING LIBRARY ) "Prize-winning Marcus Sedgwick's gift for powerful storytelling is at its very best in this emotionally charged, no holds barred novel... Eric's story leads easily into stories set at other times on this idyllic place which hides a dark and bloody heart. Unfolding the cleverly crafted and interwoven layers to their dramatic conclusion is a spell binding delight." (Julia Eccleshare LOVEREADING )

My Swordhand is Singing

In the dead heart of winter, evil stirs… In the bitter cold Tomas and his son, Peter, arrive in Chust and despite the inhospitability of the villagers settle there as woodcutters. Tomas digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut so they have their own little island kingdom. Peter doesn't understand why his father has done this, nor why his father carries a long battered box everywhere they go, and why he is forbidden to know its mysterious contents. But when a band of gypsies comes to the village Peter's drab existence is turned upside down. Drawing on extensive research of the vampire legend which per-meates traditions throughout the world and sets his story in the forbidding and remote landscapes of the 17th century, this also the story of a father and his son, of loss, redemption and resolu-tion.

“There is almost nothing you can't tackle in a teenage novel” - Marcus Sedgwick

White Crow A modern gothic thriller. Supposing you wanted to prove something, something important. Supposing you wanted to prove, for argument’s sake, that there is life after death. “1798, 10mo, 6d. I believe he intends to practise some unholy rite, a summoning, a conjuration. A thing of magic.” Two lives, two centuries apart. But they walked the same paths, lived in the same house, and became obsessed by the same question. When city girl Rebecca steps into the quiet streets of Winterfold that re-lentlessly hot summer, her uneasy friendship with strange, elfin Ferelith sets in motion a shocking train of events.

"If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white" - William James

Revolver It's 1910. In a cabin north of the Arc-tic Circle, in a place murderously cold and desolate, Sig Andersson is alone. Except for the corpse of his father, frozen to death that morning when he fell through the ice on the lake. The cabin is silent, so silent, and then there's a knock at the door. It's a stranger, and as his extraordinary sto-ry of gold dust and gold lust unwinds, Sig's thoughts turn more and more to his father's prized possession, a Colt revolver, hidden in the storeroom. A revolver just waiting to be used...but should Sig use it, or not?

Marcus Sedgwick’s favourite books? The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake.

Marcus Sedgwick

Floodland Zoe, left behind in the confusion when her parents escaped, survives on the island of Norwich as best she can. Alone and desperate among the marauding gangs, she manages to dig a boat out of the mud and gets away to Eels Island. But the island, whose raggle-taggle inhabitants are dominated by the strange boy Dooby, is full of danger too. The belief that she will one day find her parents spurs Zoe on to a dramatic escape in a fable of courage and determination, set in the watery landscape of England as it could be if the sea-levels were to rise. Winner of the Branford-Boase Award for the best debut children's novel of 2000.

Marcus regularly reviews novels for children and young adults in The Guardian on a Saturday.

Visit Marcus Sedgwick’s brilliant website

Whatever your taste in books - gothic, adventure, historical, dark romance - we’re confident that Marcus has written a novel

to satisfy YOU.

The Raven Mysteries

Welcome to the goth-froth world of The Raven Mysteries, featuring Edgar the Raven, and the hapless, hopeless, but ultimately harmless Otherhand family . . . . .

Visit The Raven Mysteries Website

You can find some fantastic book trailers and interviews with Marcus on

YouTube. Try here and here.

Year 7 Book Group

We’re starting a new Book Group especially for Yr 7. This month it’s Flood and Fang.

Pick up a copy from Upper Library today.

We’ll meet lunchtime 22nd November to

discuss the novel.

Book Group No 2

This month we’re reading Midwinterblood.

Pick up a copy from Upper Library today.

We’ll meet lunchtime 24nd November.

Books for rebels, romantics and visionaries