Lost Children Archive

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2020LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019The moving, powerful and urgent English-language debut from one of the brightest young stars in world literatureSuppose you and Pa were gone, and we were lost. What would happen then?A family in New York packs the car and sets out on a road trip. A mother, a father, a boy and a girl, they head south west, to the Apacheria, the regions of the US which used to be Mexico. They drive for hours through desert and mountains. They stop at diners when they’re hungry and sleep in motels when it gets dark. The little girl tells surreal knock knock jokes and makes them all laugh. The little boy educates them all and corrects them when they’re wrong. The mother and the father are barely speaking to each other.Meanwhile, thousands of children are journeying north, travelling to the US border from Central America and Mexico. A grandmother or aunt has packed a backpack for them, putting in a bible, one toy, some clean underwear. They have been met by a coyote: a man who speaks to them roughly and frightens them. They cross a river on rubber tubing and walk for days, saving whatever food and water they can. Then they climb to the top of a train and travel precariously in the open container on top. Not all of them will make it to the border.In a breath-taking feat of literary virtuosity, Lost Children Archive intertwines these two journeys to create a masterful novel full of echoes and reflections – a moving, powerful, urgent story about what it is to be human in an inhuman world.

First published in 1974 as A Circle of Children this is the first of four books from learning disabilities specialist Mary MacCracken.This is a book about children so emotionally disturbed they cannot fit into society; it is also the story of a woman whose involvement with these children changed the shape of their lives forever.When Mary MacCracken joined a school for emotionally disturbed children as a volunteer, she quickly found herself rocked to the core by the strong, loving people who taught there, the hard-pressed and bewildered parents, and the damaged children. On the outside most of the children looked healthy. But the reality was far sadder. Locked away from love and any human contact, these children struggled with life every day.It soon became evident that Mary MacCracken was a natural, gifted teacher. Using her instincts, observations and common sense, Mary was able to establish a rapport with even the most difficult children. Over time, Mary taught her class to eat and to drink; she decoded their mutterings, and taught them to talk and to read. But most important of all she helped them to take the first steps towards feeling love and trust.There are no miracle-workers in this story, only a remarkable woman who refused to give up. Heartfelt, moving and incredibly inspiring, this is an amazing story about the astonishing human capacity for growth and change, even in those whom society regards as beyond help.

So as not to seem completely self-indulgent to his friends and family, Conor started his year-long trip around the world with a three-month stint volunteering in the Little Princes Orphanage in war-torn Nepal. What began as a cover story changed Conor’s life, and the lives of countless others, forever.The turning point occurred during Conor's second stint as a volunteer with Little Princes. While playing on the roof of the orphanage, Conor was approached by a woman who would turn out to be the mother of two of the wards. Over hours of conversations with her, Conor learned the truth. Many of the little princes were not orphans but children that had been taken from their homes by child traffickers. In addition to losing two of her boys, this woman, while under the control of a human trafficker, was doing her best to keep seven other terrified kids alive. Conor's life changed in those moments, as he decided to commit himself to these unfortunates. After securing spots in an orphanage for all seven and arranging for an excellent local staff to run the Little Princes Orphanage, Conor escaped Nepal, one day before revolution erupted in Kathmandu.After arriving home, Conor received a devastating email reporting that the seven kids had disappeared, snatched once again by the same trafficker. Soon he was back in Kathmandu, riding through the chaotic streets on the back of a local's motorcycle, searching for his kids, seven needles in a corrupt haystack. And that is where Conor's story begins.Conor pledged to not only start a new orphanage for these seven but also to start an entire new programme dedicated to reuniting kids with their lost families in remote villages in the Nepalese hills. He lived under constant fear of retribution from the traffickers.He needed to return to the US by 22 December, both because that was the agreed-upon panic date on which friends would alert authorities if he didn't return, and because it was the date that the woman he'd fallen in love with over email would arrive at his door so they could, at long last, meet in person.Conor's tale is an epic thriller, and a love story, and is best told by Conor himself.

On your 14th birthday, you’re dead meat…Chilling SF adventure from international bestselling author Garth Nix.In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live a day past his fourteenth birthday. On that Sad Birthday, the child is the object of an obscene harvest resulting in the construction of a machinelike creature whose sole purpose is to kill.The mysterious Shade – once a man, but now more like the machines he fights – recruits the few children fortunate enough to escape. With luck, cunning, and skill, four of Shade's children come closer than any to discovering the source of the Overlords' power – and the key to their downfall. But the closer the children get, the more ruthless Shade seems to become…

A new psychological thriller from the co-author of the massive international No 1 bestseller BLACK HOUSE.From the ferocious imagination of Peter Straub springs a nerve-shredding new chiller about the persistence of evil.A woman kills herself for no apparent reason. A week later, her teenage son disappears. The vanished boy's uncle, Tim Underhill, returns to his home town of Millhaven to discover what he can. A madman known as the Sherman Park Killer has been haunting the neighbourhood, but Underhill believes that Mark's obsession with a local abandoned house is at the root of his disappearance. He fears that Mark came across its last and greatest secret – a lost girl, one who has coaxed Mark deeper and deeper into her mysterious domain. Only by following in their footsteps will Underhill uncover the shocking truth.