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Binny in Secret

On sale

4th June 2015

Price: £6.99

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Selected: ebook / ISBN-13: 9781444913422

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From the winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award 2018.

With her awful secondhand uniform and stuck-up classmates, Binny’s new school is horrible. And life gets even worse when a storm damages the roof of her house, forcing Binny and her family to move to the countryside whilst it’s being fixed. Binny, her sensible older sister Clem and her rambunctious brother James (and his chickens) begin adjusting to life in the country. Then one of James’s beloved chickens vanishes and Binny finds strange footprints in the mud. What kind of creature is lurking in the undergrowth?

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Reviews

Hodder Children's
Praise for Binny for Short:
Daily Mail
Few writers capture the voice and intimacy of family life as well as McKay and fans of her Casson Family series will adore this sensitive exploration of friendship, grief and the often hilarious rough and tumble of families adjusting to change. More Binny please.
Guardian
McKay constructs convincing, page-turning portrait of a loving family that copes with adversity. Nourishing and tremendously entertaining. Warm, wise and witty... Binny for Short shows a mistress of her medium at work.
Lion & Unicorn Books
I've long been a fan of this author for her sure touch and comic genius when it comes to writing about the ups and downs of family life. Funny, warm-hearted and perfectly pitched.
Sunday Express
Mixes family life and friendship, with plenty of warmth and humour.
Metro
Mystery with a warm, touching portrait of family life and a skillfully interwoven pre-war narrative
Daily Mail
The authenticity of family life and the intensity of childhood emotions shine through the pages of this warm, thought-provoking book
The Independent
The natural heir to E Nesbit and Dodie Smith, she describes the various mini-adventures of childhood and family life with so sure a touch it is as if those concerned are in the next room ... Adults as well as adolescent readers in search of a story where everyday life is rendered almost magical need look no further
Kirkus
With masterful comic timing McKay spins a whirl of horrifying yet hilarious admissions, mishaps, tart exchanges, and domestic tempests, as well as profoundly affecting discoveries and epiphanies, around her intense, sensitive, impulsive protagonist
The Daily Telegraph
If you're trying to wean your daughter off Jacqueline Wilson, try Hilary McKay. Her books are so good you want to climb inside the covers and live there.
Bookbag
This book is optimistic, clever, beautifully written and very, very amusing. It really is a book you shouldn't miss. * * * * *
Books for Keeps
Binny is a wonderful creation, impetuous, stubborn, awkward, generous, an irresistible character. Hilary McKay tells her story with wit, warmth and extraordinary insight and perception...Reading McKay gives us all entry to those childhood moments of perfect sunlit present
Horn Book Magazine
McKay continues to enthrall readers with her vigorous blend of screwball comedy and heartfelt emotion
The Sunday Times
McKay depicts families in all thier particular and universally recognisable eccentricity as entertainingly as any contemporary children's writer
Booktrust
Hilary McKay is a wonderful storyteller, with an especial gift for writing about family life, bringing the thoughts and feelings of children vividly to life. Beautifully-written and enormously engaging, this gentle story about friendship and family in a seaside town will charm readers, right up until its warm-hearted and very satisfying ending.
Books For Keeps
Few writers, if indeed any, write as warmly and accurately about family life as Hilary McKay, or with such humour. Her books feel both utterly timeless, and utterly contemporary. * * * * *