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The Owl Service

by Alan Garner

Interest age: 12+
Reading age: 12+

Published by HarperCollins Children's Books, 2002

  • Adventure
  • Classics
  • Fantasy
  • Historical
  • Myths and legends

About this book

Alison and her family are spending a holiday in Wales, in a bed and breakfast run by Gwyn and his mother. When Alison finds a curious dinner service in the attic, with a strange pattern of floral owls that looks different depending on how it is arranged, the discovery sets off a strange chain of events that look set to affect everyone's lives.

Soon, Alison, her stepbrother Roger and Gwyn find themselves repeating an ancient Welsh legend associated with the valley where they are staying. As tension begins to rise, can they break the pattern and avoid tragedy?

Winner of both the Guardian Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal, this extraordinary and powerful story is a modern classic. Blending together mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships, it will leave young readers eager to read more from master storyteller Alan Garner.

About the author

Alan Garner, the son of Colin and Marjorie Garner, was born ("with the cord wrapped twice round my throat") in his grandmother's front room in Congleton, Cheshire on 17th October 1934, and grew up in Alderley Edge, where his father's family have lived for more than three hundred years, being craftsmen in the area. He completed two years' national service in the Royal Artillery as a Second Lieutenant. He began writing his first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, at the age of twenty-two.

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