Given the substantial impact of feminism on children s literature and culture during the last quarter century, it comes as no surprise that gender studies have focused predominantly on issues of female representation. The question of how the same patriarchal ideology structured representations of male bodies and behaviors was until very recently a marginal discussion. Now that masculinity has emerges as an overt theme in children s literature and film, critical consideration of the subject is timely, if not long overdue

Ways of Being Male addresses this new concern...

Ten years on, Kate, Michael and Emma have grown up in a string of miserable orphanages, and all memories of their parents have faded to a blur. Arriving at Cambridge Falls, the children quickly realise there is something different about this place - and Kate feels sure she has seen the dark, crooked house before.

It's been six months since Kate, Michael and Emma confronted the Dire Magnus, but the trail to their long-lost family remains cold. Then Michael and Emma find the man who was the last person to see them. He knows about a secret map of a distant, mysterious land - maybe this is the clue that will lead them to their parents...

This is the final instalment in the Books of Beginning series. Emma, Michael and Kate are locked in a race against time: to find their parents; to defeat the evil Dire Magnus; and to locate the final Book of Beginning. When all three books are united, their power will be unstoppable. Embarking on a perilous journey to the land of the dead, Emma is forced to confront terrifying monsters and ghosts. As the fabric of time begins to fray, she becomes the final piece of an extraordinary puzzle. Only she can master the Book of Death.