The Carnegie Medal winning modern classic. On a Midwinter night, a shaman demands a new-born baby girl from her slave-mother - and carries the child away in a hut that stalks across the snow on chicken legs. The new-born son of the Czar is imprisoned, for life, in a tiny room at the top of a tall tower because the Czar is afraid his son will outdo him. The slave’s daughter, and the princeling, both long for freedom but their search for it earns them vicious enemies - the ruthless Princess Margaretta, and Kuzma, the shape-shifting bear-shaman. Can the slave's-daughter and the prince survive? This classic novel, winner of the prestigious Carnegie Medal, is now available again as a large 'trade' paperback. Suitable for readers of 9 to teenage./p&gt; 
"Whenever you poke your nose round the door, pack courage, and leave fear at home." The Ghost Drum is an original fairy-tale of shamans, shape-shifters, magic-battles, slaves and kings, set against darkness, Arctic cold, starlight and the brilliant jewel colours of folk-art. REVIEWS A find for lovers of folklore and fantasy. The Kirkus Review Price provides an icy, intense setting for her fantasy, which haunts almost as much as her unique characters. When she describes how, “the sky stars glitter in their darkness, and the snow-stars glisten in their whiteness, and between the two there hangs a shivering curtain of cold twilight,” readers will know they are in the palm of a writer whose magical eye for detail matches her ability to draw a story sweeping in scope. - Booklist A spell is indeed cast over the reader: ‘Words can alter sight and hearing, taste, touch and smell. Used with a higher skill they can make our senses clearer.’ Susan Price is happily blessed with this higher skill; it is the clarity of her prose which particularly impresses. It is difficult for an individual to attempt a form sharpened and clarified by generations of story tellers – a folk tale brightens with use and all the extraneous material wears away over the years. There is nothing out of place in THE GHOST DRUM: as in a spell every word counts: ‘The alphabet in the book spells out words you can say, but the alphabet in the drum spells out things that can never be said.’ The reverberations of this new-minted myth continue to echo after the story’s finished. - Mary Cutler Susan Price is an acclaimed author of over 60 books, which have been translated into many languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Russian. She has won several awards, including the Carnegie and the Guardian, and has been short-listed for the Whitbread. She is a founder member of the Authors Electric Collective (Find them on-line.) Visit her Amazon Author Page to find out more about her books, and links to her website and blogs.

The Ghost Drum: Book 1 of the Ghost World Sequence

Children's Books

Price, Susan

Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths

PriceClan

It's midsummer and midnight: the endless white night of the far north. Malyuta, a slave and hunter, feels richer than the Czar because he holds his first new-born, a son. He names the baby 'Ambrosi' which means immortal. Then comes Kuzma, the shape-shifting bear-shaman, who demands the baby from him. The child was born to Kuzma's apprentice in witchcraft. "Give him to me," says Kuzma. In return for the baby, he will make Malyuta rich or even return his youth. Malyuta refuses. All through the long summer night, he refuses. The hour of midnight passes and the shaman leaves but as he goes, he tells Malyuta that the baby he holds is a world-walker, a child of the Iron Ash, born to be a shaman. "Keep him, little man, and he will bring you misery!" Ambrosi grows into a beautiful, bright little boy, adored by his father. When Malyuta's beloved wife dies, he finds comfort in his child. Every winter, Malyuta has to leave the village on hunting trips. He leaves Ambrosi behind in the care of his grandparents. At the end of each trip he hurries home, eager to see his son again but on each return finds the villagers fear Ambrosi more and more. The child is uncanny, they say. Malyuta must take him away. Malyuta leaves the village forever, taking Ambrosi with him. From then on, Ambrosi shares his father's life and learns to be a hunter. In their small tent, in the vast frozen darkness of the arctic, Ambrosi dreams that a white bear comes to him. It is the bear-shaman, calling on him to follow his true nature. Ambrosi learns that there can be no peace for him until he accepts that he is a child of the Iron Ash and a world-walker. But he cannot bear to abandon the ageing Malyuta, whom he loves. He promises to become Kuzma's apprentice after his father is dead. But the cruel bear-shaman is not prepared to wait. If Malyuta's life is all that prevents Ambrosi becoming his apprentice, then Malyuta's death will come soon. Is there any way that Ambrosi can protect his father and escape from the bear-shaman? If you like mythic tales with fascinating villains and vivid imagery, then you'll love Susan Price's stark classic. Buy Ghost Song to dream of the northlands today.

Ghost Song (Ghost World Sequence)

Classics

A new edition of the enthralling original fairy-story for readers of 6 to 10, from double award winning author, Susan Price. A bad summer, and the crops didn’t grow. Now winter is coming. Everyone is hungry. People search desperately for the last of the nettles and acorns. Elka and her little brother Daw huddle under their blankets, trying to keep warm. Elka is too hungry to sleep. Awake in the dark, she overhears her parents whispering. “I don’t want to watch them starve. Take them into the wood and leave them. Take them far in, so they won’t find their way back, and leave them.” The next day their father takes them into the wood, to look for mushrooms. Daw goes along innocently, holding his father’s hand. Elka follows because she doesn’t want Daw to be alone. The light fades. Their father vanishes into the darkness among the trees. He doesn’t come back. And then come the wolves… Where do these lost children belong – in the village with the people who left them to starve? Or, in the wood, with the wolves? A full colour editiion of this beautiful book can be found at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wolfs-Footprint-Susan-Price/dp/1540345165/ REVIEWS 'No one writes this kind of dark tale better than Price... brilliantly reworks folk themes... an atmospheric and poignant story. Not a word is wasted.' Books For Keeps. 'This is a powerful piece of writing - a folk tale where difficult issues are confronted, no compromises allowed and no happy ending guaranteed. There's no escaping the anger of the little girl who decides to leave the world of her parents and remain with the pack of wolves who looked after her - nor the loneliness of the brother who pines for her at the edge of the forest. This is a classic.' Carousel. Because of the continued demand for this book from schools and parents, it has been republished by the author, with new illustrations by Andrew Price. Susan Price is an acclaimed, prize-winning author who won the Carnegie Medal in 1987 with Ghost Drum and the 1998 Guardian Children's Fiction Award for The Sterkarm Handshake. She wrote her first book aged 16 and became a full time writer aged 22. She now has over twenty children's novels to her name and has been described as 'one of the best contemporary writers for children' by Susan Hill in the Daily Telegraph.

The Wolf's Footprint: Edition Two (8-10 Range)

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Books by PriceClan

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the PriceClan publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Ghost Drum: Book 1 of the Ghost World Sequence

Ghost Song (Ghost World Sequence)

The Wolf's Footprint: Edition Two (8-10 Range)