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There he was, below the bridge, half-naked, eyes blazing. He had a pair of burning torches. He ran them back and forth across his skin. He sipped from a bottle, breathed across a torch, and fire and fumes leapt from his lips. The air was filled with the scent of paraffin. He breathed again, a great high spreading flag of fire. He glared. He roared like an animal. That summer, life had seemed perfect for Bobby Burns. But now it's autumn and the winds of change are blowing hard. Bobby's dad is mysteriously ill. His new school is a cold and cruel place. And worse: nuclear war may be about to start. But Bobby has a wonder-working friend called Ailsa Spink. And he's found the fire-eater, a devil called McNulty. What can they do together on Bobby's beach? Is it possible to work miracles? Will they be able to transform the world? A stunning novel from the author of the modern children's classic Skellig - winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book Award. David Almond is also winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen award.

Reviews

'a fine writer, one of the very finest we have. He is simply incapable of writing a bad sentence. [The Fire-Eaters] is for me David Almond's best book ... masterful in every aspect. ... There is the intensity of family life, wonderfully observed and delicately drawn ... fear pervades this book, fears we all know, but there is hope too. And we need that. How we need that.' -- Michael Morpurgo, Financial Times Magazine 'Once in a while a book comes along that takes over your head and your heart. David Almond's The Fire-Eaters is such a book' -- Wendy Cooling, The Bookseller 'Almond makes familiar issues fresh; his characters are finely drawn and his depiction of place perfectly realised.' -- Julia Eccleshare, The Guardian 'a tale so marvellously told that it seems a shame to to label it as only for children ... Almond is exceptional in his ability to make happiness real, at the same time as suggesting its fragility.' -- Justine Picardie, The Telegraph