War Boy

Michael Foreman woke up when an incendiary bomb dropped through the roof of his Lowestoft home. Luckily, it missed his bed by inches, bounced off the floor and exploded up the chimney. So begins Michael's fascinating, brilliantly illustrated tale of growing up on the Suffolk frontline during World War II. He tells how he and his friends and family coped with bombing raids and deadly doodlebugs, how gas masks were great for making rude noises, and how nothing could beat rabbit pie! ' ... vivid, humorous and touching' Guardian.

Told by a deaf-mute teenage skateboard freak, charged with the fevered intensity of youth, War Boy is a brilliant evocation of the search for love - pure literary adrenalin Fleeing his father, fourteen-year-old Radboy takes to the road with Jonnyboy, an older friend who has become the only person he trusts. On the bus headed out of town they hook up with Finn and Critter, speed-freak boyfriends who take a shine to both of them. They also meet Ula, who is mourning the death of her fiance and taking a trip across the country in his memory. The five become fast allies, united by loss and by the allure of intimacy. When Jonnyboy drops out of sight, Radboy stays behind in San Francisco, where the underground world inspires his own burgeoning sexual and emotional desires. Radboy and his friends put their restless energy to use on a scheme to destroy a company that is ravaging the redwood forests. But their plans, fuelled as much by drugs and paranoia as good intentions go horribly wrong, and the violent aftermath brings a powerful - and unexpected - awakening to Radboy. Hard-edged, emotionally authentic, War Boy is an utterly engrossing novel from a stellar and uncompromising new talent.

This is a story of the Seventies by one baby boomer, viewed through his particular life of travel, work, romance and recreation. Starting Out is not the sensational story of a celebrity, but rather a unique perspective by one witness of a decade that began the hope of flower power and love and ended in the winter of discontent and the advent of Thatcherism. It forms Volume Two of Trevor Cherrett's autobiography Post War Boy and traces his emigration to the 'cod and fog' of Newfoundland for his first job, travels to Mexico with his girlfriend from university to watch the 1970 World Cup, and their return to London after some fraught and accident-prone travels. It is a story of time, place, and politics, viewed through working in London, the new city of Milton Keynes and later the county of Derbyshire. It is also the story of an exploration of the waterways of England in 20ft wooden clinker boat named Morgan, "a suitable case for treatment" as sub-titled in the film of the era, starring Vanessa Redgrave and David Warner. Besides these adventures Starting Out is also about personal feelings and relationships, candidly explored in a decade that saw the end of many dreams of radical change or revolution, but which also experienced the birth and growth of women's liberation and feminism. The author traces the impacts that these movements had on his life and loves, and reflects on the joys and tragedies of the decade for himself and the wider world.

The true story of Deng Adut - Sudanese child soldier, refugee, man of hope - for readers aged 12+. Deng Adut's family were farmers in South Sudan when a brutal civil war altered his life forever. At six years old, his mother was told she had to give him up to fight. At the age most Australian children are starting school, Deng was conscripted into the Sudan People's Liberation Army. He began a harsh, relentless military training that saw this young boy trained to use an AK-47 and sent into battle. He lost the right to be a child. He lost the right to learn. The things Deng saw over those years will stay with him forever. He suffered from cholera, malaria and numerous other debilitating illnesses but still he had to fight. A child soldier is expected to kill or be killed and Deng almost died a number of times. He survived being shot in the back. The desperation and loneliness was overwhelming. He thought he was all alone. But Deng was rescued from war by his brother John. Hidden in the back of a truck, he was smuggled out of Sudan and into Kenya. Here he lived in refugee camps until he was befriended by an Australian couple. With their help and the support of the UN, Deng Adut came to Australia as a refugee. Despite physical injuries and mental trauma he grabbed the chance to make a new life. He worked in a local service station and learnt English watching The Wiggles. He taught himself to read and started studying at TAFE. In 2005 he enrolled in a Bachelor of Law at Western Sydney University. He became the first person in his family to graduate from university. This is an inspiring story of a man who has overcome deadly adversity to become a lawyer and committed worker for the disenfranchised, helping refugees in Western Sydney. It is an important reminder of the power of compassion and the benefit to us all when we open our doors and our hearts to fleeing war, persecution and trauma.

They say if you can remember the Sixties you could not have been there. Well post war baby boomer Trevor Cherrett was there and he can remember them. But his memories are more about what it was really like to grow up in one of the most rapidly changing periods in Britain`s history, as the country emerged from the destruction of the Second World War to a new world of peace, prosperity and the Welfare State. Born almost in sight of the red funnelled Cunarders in the port of Southampton – and on the edge of the Luftwaffe`s bombing run just a few years before – the author evokes his early years of national health orange juice, cod-liver oil, and school milk; discovering the joys of exploring the (then) sleepy country town of Ringwood where you could get away with tri-cycling halfway to Bournemouth; and growing up by the harbours and beaches of Mudeford and the South Coast . In frank detail he explores how he experienced the trials and tribulations of family life and girlfriends in a period which invented `the teenager` and witnessed the passing of much of the `old order`; how school shaped his life in the days of the 11 Plus and the great divide between Grammar schools and Secondary Moderns, and the new opportunities to go to University; and how growing up on the South Coast and the New Forest opened the door to his passions for fishing, boating and football. Like many baby boomers, Trevor acknowledges that they were, and are, a fortunate generation. But, he argues, it wasn`t just good luck or - worse – some kind of inter- generational conspiracy. Much of their good fortune was the result of far-sighted post-war policies aimed at creating a fairer as well as a more prosperous society. And he believes those policies have lessons for us today. This is not the autobiography of a Celebrity. Rather it is the story of an Everyman living through an extraordinary period of history, and making the links between his personal endeavours and the social, economic and cultural changes that affected his life, and the different places in which they were played out.

They rowed hard, away from the battleships and the bombs. Water sprayed over them. The rowboat pitched one way and then the other. Then, before his eyes, the Arizona lifted up out of the water. That enormous battleship bounced up in the air like a rubber ball and split apart. Fire burst out of the ship. A geyser of water shot into the air and came crashing down. Adam was almost thrown out of the rowboat. He clung to the seat as it swung around. He saw blue skies and the glittering city. The boat swung back again, and he saw black clouds, and the Arizona, his father's ship, sinking beneath the water. -- from A Boy at War "He kept looking up, afraid the planes would come back. The sky was obscured by black smoke....It was all unreal: the battleships half sunk, the bullet holes in the boat, Davi and Martin in the water." December 7, 1941: On a quiet Sunday morning, while Adam and his friends are fishing near Honolulu, a surprise attack by Japanese bombers destroys the fleet at Pearl Harbor. Even as Adam struggles to survive the sudden chaos all around him, and as his friends endure the brunt of the attack, a greater concern hangs over his head: Adam's father, a navy lieutenant, was stationed on the USS Arizona when the bombs fell. During the subsequent days Adam -- not yet a man, but no longer a boy -- is caught up in the war as he desperately tries to make sense of what happened to his friends and to find news of his father. Harry Mazer, whose autobiographical novel, The Last Mission, brought the European side of World War II to vivid life, now turns to the Pacific theater and how the impact of war can alter young lives forever.

In the mid-1980s, Emmanuel Jal was a seven year old Sudanese boy, living in a small village with his parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings. But as Sudan's civil war moved closer—with the Islamic government seizing tribal lands for water, oil, and other resources—Jal's family moved again and again, seeking peace. Then, on one terrible day, Jal was separated from his mother, and later learned she had been killed; his father Simon rose to become a powerful commander in the Christian Sudanese Liberation Army, fighting for the freedom of Sudan. Soon, Jal was conscripted into that army, one of 10,000 child soldiers, and fought through two separate civil wars over nearly a decade. But, remarkably, Jal survived, and his life began to change when he was adopted by a British aid worker. He began the journey that would lead him to change his name and to music: recording and releasing his own album, which produced the number one hip-hop single in Kenya, and from there went on to perform with Moby, Bono, Peter Gabriel, and other international music stars. Shocking, inspiring, and finally hopeful, War Child is a memoir by a unique young man, who is determined to tell his story and in so doing bring peace to his homeland.

The classic Chinese novel: “Imagine a combination of picaresque novel, fairy tale, fabliau, Mickey Mouse, Davy Crockett, and Pilgrim’s Progress” (The Nation). Probably the most popular book in the history of the Far East, this classic sixteenth-century novel is a combination of picaresque novel and folk epic that mixes satire, allegory, and history into a rollicking adventure. It is the story of the roguish Monkey and his encounters with major and minor spirits, gods, demigods, demons, ogres, monsters, and fairies. This translation, by the distinguished scholar Arthur Waley, is the first accurate English version; it makes available to the Western reader a faithful reproduction of the spirit and meaning of the original. “Mr. Waley has done a remarkable job with this translation.” —Helena Kuo, The New York Times “The irreverent spirit and exuberant vitality of it portraiture . . . make it an entertainment to which Mr. Waley’s witty translation has obviously contributed not a little.” —The Times (London) “Told with immense gusto, and quite apart from its deeper meaning and wise proverbial sayings it is full of entertainment.” —The Guardian