The Spook's Apprentice: Book 1 (The Wardstone Chronicles, 1)

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A gothic, paranormal sort of work that should appeal well enough to the entire range of a YA audience—despite the MC’s technical age. The prose is simple yet strong, and the telling is engaging. Delany has constructed a dreary, dangerous world and a sympathetically innocent character with which readers must navigate. Themes of friendship, honesty, courage, resourcefulness, and the extending of grace, all feature prominently. The son of a labourer, Delaney was born and grew up in Preston. He went to school at Preston Catholic college and began work as an apprentice engineer before taking A-levels at night school and going to Lancaster University as a mature student to study English, history and sociology when he was 27. On graduating he trained as a teacher at St Martin’s college in Lancaster.

The pacing in this book is fantastic. We move from plot point to plot point smoothly, never jolting around like a lot of children’s fantasy can. Certain things are foreshadowed well, so that when they do happen, we were almost expecting them. Spook’s Apprentice is was a YA debut novel by Joseph Delaney, so I’ll be find *crosses heart*. Spook���s is one of those a-typical British fantasy novels, where it takes a lot of influences through the English countryside and English mannerisms (J R R Tolken, C S Lewis etc). It reminded me of sitting in front of the TV when I was 10, watching The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe being scared half to death while using the cushion as a shield against the evil things – the oxymoron here was that I couldn't keep my eyes off what was happening, so I had to watch it. In some ways this novel is similar. Much to my surprise there is no real structural fantasy like you find in most of the genre. Magic isn’t a thing – the powers we find are more apotropaic (I've the Eye of Horus tattooed on my right arm, it’s a load of cods-wallop!) and natural magic – so fundamental interaction. Like a natural remedy your mum or nan might have given you when you were a kid (for example – thyme has natural antibiotic/septic in it, Lemon for stings and some burns etc). We hope that his books will inspire children and adults to create stories and live dreams of their own. That would have made him happy. Tom was a sympathetic, likable narrator. He was realistic for his age, but I truly did admire his bravery although he was scared when a rational person would have been scared. He was often left to deal with situations that would have been challenging for a grown-up, much less a boy of twelve. He risked his life to do the right thing, and that was very admirable to me.The Spook's Bestiary – A guidebook to the creatures found in The Wardstone Chronicles universe. Published in the US as The Last Apprentice – The Spook's Bestiary: The Guide to Creatures of the Dark. – 2010 This is a fantastic first book for The Wardstone Chronicles fantasy series. It introduces some of our main characters as well as a few mysteries we want to discover more about. This introduction to the world offers us a glimpse at just how epic in scope the story can be further down the line. This book was the winner of the Hampshire Book Award. Joseph Delaney attended the event and met the pupils who voted for his book.

The Spook's Apprentice, The Spook's Curse and The Spook's Secret have all been shortlisted for the Lancashire children's Book for the Year Award. The Spook's Apprentice is the winner of both the Sefton Book Award and the Hampshire Book Award.ALSC's 2006 Notable Videos/DVDs, Recordings, Software, and Subscription Services for Children". School Library Journal . Retrieved 4 October 2012. Baukov šegrt" je prva od 13 knjiga u serijalu, kod nas je naravno i jedina prevedena (hvala Goodreadsu i Googleu na postojanju). Pomalo mi je krivo zbog toga jer je ovo jedna od boljih knjiga za mlade koju sam pročitala u poslednjih nekoliko godina. Tom knows that his parents have agreed to make Tom the apprentice of the Spook. He will have to learn how the Spook fights "The Dark" as it's referred to in the book. Drawing on this and other stories from Lancashire folklore, Delaney created a world in which everyday life is convincingly infused with the paranormal. The young hero, Tom Ward, a seventh son of a seventh son, and thus gifted with special powers, is destined to become apprenticed to the bad-tempered spook, and learns to wrangle with the troublesome boggart and other creatures from the Dark. First of all, a very, very engaging and rather original plot! It's similar to HARRY POTTER in this: both take place in England, and both have a lot to do with folkoric creatures and legends: witches, boggarts, and the like. But there's where the similarities end. You can read the synopsis up at the top and know that this will be the story of Thomas J. Ward, the seventh son of a seventh son (hey Angie Sage--that's like your story!) who becomes the apprentice of the County's Spook (hold your horses - fellow Americans! That's the dude's title) and through all sorts of adventures learns the lessons of the trade.

The Ghost Prison - The book occupies the same world as The Wardstone Chronicles, but with different characters and story lines (2013) He can see and sense things that others can’t, so he is apprenticed to the local spook whose job it is to protect The County from witches, boggarts, ghosts and other things that go bump in the night.This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( August 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) The Last Apprentice: The Spook's Tale And Other Horrors – A collection of four short stories [ The Spook's Tale; Alice's Tale; Grimalkin's Tale; A Gallery of Villains]; this is a USA-released compilation incorporating the earlier published The Spook's Tale. – 2009 The Spook's trained many, but precious few completed their time," Mam said, "and those that did aren't a patch on him. They're flawed or weak or cowardly. They walk a twisted path taking money for accomplishing little. So there's only you left now, son. You're the last chance. The last hope."