A Dangerous Game

by Malorie Blackman, illustrated by Mike Lowery

Interest age: 8 to 11
Reading age: 8+

Published by Barrington Stoke, 2018

Adventure
Dyslexia

About this book

All Sam wants is to prove that he is as strong and active as the other boys in his class. But his long-term illness (sickle-cell anaemia) means that he quickly runs out of energy and has frequent episodes of severe pain that put him in hospital.

Sam feels that his over-protective parents see him as someone who is either in hospital or just about to be there, and he hates it. Finally he gets a chance to do something he’s longed to do for years – go on a school trip.

The trip is a walking expedition in the Scottish mountains, but it goes badly wrong when the other boys in Sam’s group play a trick on the teachers and get their whole group lost in the woods. A heavy rainstorm brings flash floods and events quickly turn dangerous. Can Sam save the day?

This is a fast-paced adventure story with plenty of peril and Sam is an empathetic hero. There is an author’s note from Malorie Blackman with more information about sickle-cell anaemia, and the book is printed using dyslexia-friendly font and paper.

Note: This book was published in a different form as Forbidden Game by Puffin in 1994.

About the author

Malorie Blackman is acknowledged as one of today's most imaginative and convincing writers for young readers.

The novels in her Noughts & Crosses sequence have won several awards, including the Children's Book Award, and she has won many other awards for her books for the Random House list. Both Hacker and Thief! won the Young Telegraph/Gimme 5 Award – Malorie is the only author to have won this award twice – while Hacker also won the WH Smith Mind-Boggling Books Award in 1994.

Her work has appeared on screen, with Pig-Heart Boy, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, being adapted into a BAFTA-award-winning TV serial. Malorie has also written a number of titles for younger readers. In 2005, Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children's books.

In 2008, she was then honoured with an OBE for her services to Children's Literature. She was the Waterstones Children's Laureate for 2013-2015.

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