Shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award 2018. The Skylarks' War is a beautiful story following the loves and losses of a family growing up against the harsh backdrop of World War One, from the award-winning Hilary McKay. Clarry and her older brother Peter live for their summers in Cornwall, staying with their grandparents and running free with their charismatic cousin, Rupert. But normal life resumes each September - boarding school for Peter and Rupert, and a boring life for Clarry at home with her absent father, as the shadow of a terrible war looms ever closer. When...

The Conroy sisters are back! In Hilary Mckay's second book in The Exiles series, The Exiles at Home, the four delightfully troublesome siblings manage to get themselves into yet more mischief. When Ruth Conroy decides to sponsor a child in Africa, she is unprepared for the monthly monetary commitment and is shocked by how difficult it is to find GBP10 a month . . . In desperation, she enlists the help of her sisters - but Phoebe, Naomi and Rachel are only too eager to think up eccentric fundraising schemes, including wholly undisciplined and unsuitable baby-sitters, an unhygienic catering...

The Exiles was the winner of the 1992 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and is the first novel in Hilary McKay's wonderfully witty and warm The Exiles series. Ruth, Naomi, Rachel and Phoebe Conroy love reading and having fun more than anything else. So the sisters are horrified when they learn that their parents are sending them away to Cumbria for the summer, to stay with their fearsome grandmother: Big Grandma. Big Grandma is strict, makes them do chores and doesn't let them have any fun - but worst of all, she refuses to let the girls read any books. Determined to enjoy their summer,...

Love is in the air . . . The Exiles in Love is the third and final book in the award-winning The Exiles series, with Hilary McKay's trademark wit and warmth. Ruth, Naomi, Rachel and Phoebe Conroy are all struggling to deal with the trials and tribulations of first love(s). Ruth develops a crush on the school bus driver, but finds herself conflicted when she also develops feelings for Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre, the temporary English teacher (who Naomi is also smitten with) AND Alan Adair who works in the butcher's shop. Meanwhile, the younger two sisters have other things on their...

From acclaimed author and Costa winner Hilary McKay comes The Time of Green Magic: a beautiful, spell-binding novel about family, magic, an old house and a mysterious visitor . . . Abi and her two step-brothers, Max and Louis, find that strange things happen when they are alone in their eerie, ivy-covered new house. Abi, reading alone, finds herself tumbling deep into books, while Louis summons a startling guest through his bedroom window. Even Max has started to see shapes in the shadows . . . Their busy parents see none of it - but Louis' secret visitor is growing too alarming to...

From the Costa Award-winning author Hilary McKay, comes a moving WWII story of family and friendship on opposite sides of a devastating conflict. The Swallows' Flight is the stunning companion novel to The Skylarks' War. Erik and Hans are German boys. Ruby and Kate are English girls. They grow up in worlds that would never meet, until war tumbles their lives together. Then one September afternoon there are choices to be made. How is courage lost, and found? Who is really the enemy? And what does friendship truly mean, in the middle of a war? Meanwhile Rupert and Clarry work...