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Gr 7-Up The two-time winner of Britain's prestigious Carnegie Medal has written another first-person narrative that touches on themes of unstable families and emotional abandonment. Holly Starcross has known two lives. For the first six years of her life, she lived with her parents and lots of animals in the country. Then her mother abruptly left her father, taking her daughter with her. Holly, now 14, lives with her mother, her stepfather, and their three children. A stranger who begins following her turns out to be her father, whom she hasn't seen or h...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Eight years ago, without warning, Mum whisked six-year-old Holly away from her beloved Dad and his Derbyshire farm. Marriage to Dad was an unsatisfactory interlude for Mum, now a TV celebrity with an attractive producer husband, three new children, and Holly to fill in between the many short-term nannies. Self-absorbed Mum takes for granted the way the capable fourteen-year-old meets her relentless demands; worse, Mum's continuing rancor toward Holly's nice but unambitious Dad fuels her continual exasperation with Holly herself. Though Holly has never even heard from Dad, she remembers him...Log In or Sign Up to Read More