Jayben and the Golden Torch: Book 1

Product Information

An evil villain called Null is burning down the forests, hellbent on finding the torch and becoming the most powerful being ever to live. Jayben and the Golden Torchauthor Thomas Leeds has personal experience of looking for fiction starring characters who have epilepsy and memory loss. Libraries are places of comfort, friendly faces and opportunities. It’s an absolute privilege to do what I do” Finding a world of clans that descend from old magic & someone who is draining their memories by taking magic away. The idea for my book Jayben and the Golden Torch came exploding into my head and I've never felt so compelled to do something. I had to write it.

Jayben and the Golden Torch by Thomas Leeds | Waterstones

From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada: Ben has lived with his unkind Aunt Samantha for six years. He has no memory of his parents or why they left him. In fact, he has no memories at all of the first six years of his life. And the brain injury that stole his memories also causes him to have seizures. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - Ben lives with his aunt who isn't especially nice to live with. He's not too sure what happened to his parents.I went to a lot of the places I was told I had been to as a child, all the parks and shops and old schools. I went to places we’d been to on holiday and travelled the tube on the routes I had taken in my teens. We tried everything, but as time went on, the boy with my name in so many stories and grainy photographs remained another person in another world. On my journey to recovery, I realised that I had a great imagination and I loved coming up with stories. Then I learned that, before my accident, I loved writing. Though I had no clear memory of this, it made sense and I dared to dream of being an author someday. But my brain injury had stopped me reading and writing and, between my unreliable memory and my seizures, achieving this dream seemed completely impossible. For all the brilliant non-fiction resources there are to help a child cope with a brain injury and epilepsy, I believe they need help through fiction just as much. They need to see their difficulties faced by strong characters in stories that are not about the fact that they're disabled – books that any of their friends might enjoy just as much.

Jayben and the Golden Torch: Book 1 | Better Reading Jayben and the Golden Torch: Book 1 | Better Reading

Then I was told that it was possible that my memories might not actually be gone, they were just hard to reach. Maybe something from my past could jog them. My hopes ballooned. I just needed to find a key, and so my search began. The night before my 30th birthday, I decided to try to accept that he was simply gone – for ever. I was planning a 1980s-themed party and had started preparing a playlist of 80s music. It was late. I went to bed, plugged my earphones in and closed my eyes. I started skipping from one classic to the next, adding each tune to the playlist. After 10 years of listening to the radio, I knew them all by heart. My head was flooded with questions. Everything was new. At first, the questions were small and simple and very much in the present. What’s an ice-cream? How do I make that music play? Who are they? Then I pressed ‘skip’ one more time, and that’s when it happened – the most surreal moment of my lifeI loved this book - a triumphant and richly imagined fantasy as well as a compelling insight into life with seizures and memory loss. I can't wait to see where this story goes!' - Lee Newbery, author of The Last Firefox