“A truly exceptional novel” – The Bookseller Children’s Book of the Month

Based on the true story of Indian WWI gunner and recipient of the Victoria Cross, Khudadad Khan. The story is told from four perspectives: Lotte, a Belgian farmgirl whose village is the flashpoint for a battle; Ernst, a German teenage cavalry soldier whose grandiose dreams of war lie in tatters; Khudadad Khan, the gunner fighting with the British Army; and the walnut tree that shelters them all.

England, 1937.

Gwen, Noor, Dodo and Vera are four very different teenage girls, with something in common. Their parents are all abroad, leaving them in their English boarding school, where they soon form an intense friendship. The four friends think that no matter what, they will always have each other. Then the war comes.

The girls find themselves flung to different corners of the war, from the flying planes in the Air Transport Auxiliary to going undercover in the French Resistance. Each journey brings danger and uncertainty as each of them wonders if they can make it through – and what will be left of the world. But at the same time, this is what shows them who they really are – and against this impossible backdrop, they find new connections and the possibility of love.

Will the four friends ever see each other again? And when the war is over, who will be left to tell the story?

A heartbreaking and gripping story of hope, fear and unbreakable friendship, for readers of Code Name Verity and When the World Was Ours.

The Coram man takes babies and money from desperate mothers, promising to deliver them safely to a Foundling Hospital in London. Instead, he murders them and buries them by the roadside, to the helpless horror of his mentally ill son, Mish.

Mish saves one, Aaron, who grows up happily unaware of his history, proving himself a promising musician. As Aaron’s new life takes him closer to his real family, the watchful Mish makes a terrible mistake, delivering Aaron and his best friend Toby back into the hands of the Coram man.

It tells the story of a dark time in English history. Fans of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Goodnight Mr Tom will love this. A great read for children aged 10+.

Look out for Jamilla’s other titles:

The Eye of the Horse

The Robber Baron’s Daughter

The Track of the Wind

Wheel of Surya

Coram Boy won the 2000 Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and has been adapted into a highly acclaimed stage play.

Jamila Gavin was born in Mussoorie, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. With an Indian father and an English mother, she inherited two rich cultures which ran side by side throughout her life, and which always made her feel she belonged to both countries.

The family finally settled in England where Jamila completed her schooling, was a music student, worked for the BBC and became a mother of two children. It was then that she began writing children’s books, and felt a need to reflect the multi-cultural world in which she and her children now lived.