Showing results by author "Kate Thompson" in All Categories

When German soldiers invaded Poland in September 1939, it began a six-year journey for then-ten-year-old Renee Salt and her mother Sala. Until their liberation in 1945, Renee and Sala were imprisoned in ghettos and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. The only light in the darkness and brutality for Renee was the unwavering grasp of her mother’s hand in hers–enduring, against all odds. It was this unbreakable bond, along with a few miracles, that kept Renee alive.

The Isle of Jersey was once a warm and neighborly community, but in 1943, German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule. Nazis have ordered Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, to destroy books that threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, she wants to fight back. So she forms the Wartime Book Club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading.

Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While war ravages the city above her, Clara has risked everything she holds dear to turn the Bethnal Green tube station into the country’s only underground library. Down here, a secret community thrives with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café, and a theater—offering shelter, solace, and escape from the bombs that fall upon their city. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. As the war drags on, the women's determination is tested to the limits.

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground.

From enchanting cliff tops and white sandy bays to the pretty cobbled streets of St Helier, Jersey is known as the land of milk and honey. But for best friends Bea Rose (the local postwoman) and Grace Le Motte (who works in the island's only library) it becomes the frontline to everyday resistance when their beloved island is occupied by German forces in 1940.

Londres, 1944. Clara Button no es una bibliotecaria cualquiera. Mientras el mundo sigue en guerra, en el este de Londres, Clara ha creado la única biblioteca subterránea del país, construida sobre las vías de la estación de metro en desuso de Bethnal Green. Allí abajo prospera una comunidad secreta con miles de literas, una guardería, una cafetería y un teatro que ofrecen refugio, calidez y distracción frente a las bombas que caen en el exterior.

Following on from The New Policeman and The Last of the High Kings, The White Horse Trick travels from the now to far distant futures: from world's end to world's beginning. From the Winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Children's Book Award.

The East End streets are grimy and brutal, but in one corner of Bethnal Green it's forever Hollywood. Stella and Winnie work in Herbie's studio; their best friend, Kitty, works next door as an apprentice dressmaker. All life passes through the studio, wishing to capture that perfect moment in time. As clouds of war brew on the horizon, danger looms over the East End. Will the wedding girls find their happy ever after?

In 1940s London, each cobbled street is strewn with ghosts of soldiers past. And for the women, their battles are on the home front. Flossy is embraced by the colourful mix of characters working at Trout's, who have turned their sewing expertise to war work. Dolly Doolaney, darling of the East End, helps Flossy settle into wartime life. All of the sewing bees play their part in defending the front line, but as the Blitz hits London, can Dolly manage to contain the secret that binds them all?

During World War Two, Churchill declared that 'beauty was duty'. But for the women working at the Yardley cosmetics factory in London's East End, it's friendship and family. Nineteen-year-old Lily Gunn runs the conveyor belt in the factory's Lipstick Room with tight reins, though of all the women working there it's her 16-year-old sister who gives her the most trouble. Especially when Rene's new boyfriend Ronnie gets called up to fight, leaving Rene alone and with a big problem....

Annie, Rose, Pearl and Millie carry on making matches for the British Army, with bombs raining down around them. Inspired by the Dig for Victory campaign, Annie persuades the owners to start Bryant & May allotment in the factory grounds. With plenty of sweat and toil, the girls eventually carve out a corner of the yard into a green plot full of life and colour. In the darkest of times, the girls find their allotment a tranquil, happy escape.

1942. Sixteen-year-old Poppy Percival turns up at Trout's clothing factory to start work as a seamstress. Poppy harbours a secret - one from which she is still suffering. But she's not the only one with a secret. Each of her new friends at the factory is hiding something painful. The war will throw their lives into turmoil but also bring these women closer to each other than they could ever have imagined.

J J Liddy sometimes blames his unreliable temperament on the visit he made to Tir na nOg, the land of eternal youth, when he was 15 years old. It's perhaps not surprising that his children have also turned out to be a little eccentric, especially eleven-year-old Jenny. She forgets to go to school, can't bear to wear shoes, and spends entire days roaming the mountainside.

It's more money than the street urchin has ever dreamt of. But who is the rider, and why is there so much interest in his big black horse? And will the boy ever see the money he has been promised? There's highway robbery in the air, but it isn't entirely clear just who is trying to rob who.

Nell Gunn, Snowball and Esther will be back, along with more characters from Britain's biggest beauty factory, as they battle the twists and turns of war in Stratford. Will Nell find lasting love? Will Snowball reveal what forced him onto the streets? And will Esther be able to tame the wild child she takes under her wing as part of her new bursary? As flowers and vegetables blossom in the Shoot's new Dig for Victory allotment, can the inhabitants really bury their pasts?

Nach einer wahren Geschichte: eine Hommage an Bücher, Bibliotheken und die Kraft der Hoffnung. Der historische Roman "Die Bibliothek der Hoffnung" erzählt die Geschichte der U-Bahn-Station Bethnal Green in London, die während des 2. Weltkriegs für 5.000 Menschen zu einer Art Zuhause wurde. London, 1944: In der stillgelegten U-Bahn-Station Bethnal Green suchen die Londoner Schutz vor den Fliegerbomben. Hier haben sie sich eine Art neues Leben aufgebaut, es gibt sogar ein Theater, einen Kindergarten – und eine kleine Bibliothek.

With her 15th birthday imminent, Tess is running out of time. She must decide who, or what, she will become when she makes the final Switch of her life. To make the impossible decision even worse, she finds herself bundled off to relatives in the country, miles from home, her parents and, most importantly, Kevin. What on earth will she do in the wild woods? And what will the wild woods do to her?

There is never enough time in Kinvara. When Helen Liddy is asked what she wants for her birthday, she says, "Time. That's what I want. Time." Fifteen-year-old JJ is continuing the Liddy family tradition with his fiddle-playing. But one day, he discovers that music might not be the only thing that runs in his veins. Was his great-grandfather was a murderer? When JJ sets out to buy his mother some time, he discovers the answer, as well as some truly remarkable things about music, myth, and magic.

Kevin knows that Tess is a Switcher, for he is one too able to take on any animal shape he chooses and to think, feel and live as that creature. Kevin persuades Tess to join him as a rat, and the two make their way beneath the snowbound city through the underground network to see Lizzie, a strange old woman who tells the children that they alone can save the world from icy destruction. Can they trust her? And can they overcome the terrible enemy which waits at the heart of the blizzards in the north?

There's something strange about Martin, and Tess can't work out what it is. He's a Switcher, with the same amazing powers that she has, but there's a sinister side to him. As Tess begins to unravel the awful secret Martin is hiding, she is dragged into the dark night-time world in which he lurks. And there she is faced with the most terrifying choice of her life.