Noah's Gold

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Frank is also a successful writer of film scripts and was the official scriptwriter for the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 Olympics, playing an important role devising the ceremony with Danny Boyle. He is also a judge for the BBC Radio 2 500 Words competition. You can read a great interview with Frank and one of his fellow judge, Francesca Simon here! Noah's Gold has that perfect mix of reality and then something a little bit magical. The characters are great and Cottrell Boyce's character description is especially elite here. See: "Have you noticed, by the way, that Eve is always asking questions and then answering them herself before you get a chance?". It's so simple but it just tells you so much about the character. Each of the gang are totally fantastic characters with personalities so affectionately created by the author. Ryland Scally (his second name is one for the Scousers reading this) loves computers with fights involved. Also fights themselves in general. Dario Fogerty is a walking encyclopaedia and my absolute favourite was Ada Adamski, "who talked like she had the faeries on speed dial". Ada is convinced that Noah is a magical child from the island itself - "He's like a wee hobbit", and made me laugh out loud at her delightful daydreaming ditzy demeanour.

Second; this is a brilliant story. It's told mostly in letters from Noah to his parents (and grandmother? I was unclear about that.) with a few replies from them and a couple of other items thrown in as well. Noah's a great narrator, funny and serious with a wonderful eye for detail. (Golden Fury! I'll be calling it that forever. My grandchildren will think I'm crazy, but I will persist.) Frank Cottrell-Boyce is one of those “gem of an author” who knows how to tap into what young people want to read and enjoy.Cosmic and Billions are classic stories and Noah’ s Gold should be added to this list.Coffee house Caffè Nero has announced the 16-strong shortlist for the inaugural Nero Book Awards, recognising the outstanding books of the past 12... Told through a series of letters, Noah writes to his parents and others describing events and the ensuing outcomes. This is a book full of heart .When the children discover food and make comparisons to their local food bank we know that this isn’t the world of middle class Enid Blyton youngsters but a world of challenge and change that often is dominated by technology and materialism leaving many without. Then they will laugh at the adventures of the children struggling on using only their own wiles and brains: “I don’t know how Henry VIII died. I don’t know what those birds are called. I didn’t know you were supposed to put a message in the bottle. I won’t know anything until the phones work again!” The children have to manage without phones and technology and begin to show more resilience and strength of character than they ever expected. Not limited by, or conscious of, the need to get social media approval anymore, they begin to communicate, relate to and bond in a different, more honest way. They must use their teamwork and combined skills when danger draws close, as they realise they may not be alone on the island after all. I like how this book points out that a lot of things can go wrong on school trips even though the teachers say nothing will ever go wrong. It makes me quite glad not to have been on a school trip in a long time.

Our main character Noah sneaks on to the minibus of his sisters geography school trip with with her year 9 friends & the teacher. However things take a turn for the worse literally due to a dodgy sat nav & they find themselves stranded on a small island where Noah is outed & then he accidentally manages to switch off the internet!.This is where the book really changes as we see the panic of the children who can't use their phones and have no communication, it shows the element of reliance especially as they then loose the teacher. First; my proof copy had some illustrations, but not everything. I can't wait to get my hands on a finished copy and look at them properly. The ones I saw were amazing, full of humour and perfectly matched to the text. The chapters are written as letters between Noah and his parents, and the fact that they seem strangely calm – maybe even amused – at Noah’s Lord of the Flies-style situation gives it a real sense of the absurd. There’s also a gentle message about the value we can find in everyday things when we are forced to put our phones and laptops away, and the firm friendships that take hold in times of uncertainty.

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Told in letters that are mainly written by Noah to his parents in which he shares all about what the children have been up to over the course of five days (and nights), which includes foiling a robbery. The book will have children giggling out loud. This is a cross over book - perfect for upper key stage 2 readers but those in key stage 3 not necessarily wanting to venture in to the YA adult section of the library or bookshop. This is an adventure story interwoven with some comical and thought provoking elements. Young Noah accidentally finds himself caught on a geography school trip with his older sister and some fellow year 9 students; through the naivety of their teacher they find themselves stranded on a small island where accidentally young Noah “ switches off “ the internet and thus chaos ensues. They are stranded without communication . What is comical and striking ( and worthy of family and class discussion ) is how the youngsters are so dependent on the internet and social media within their lives for survival, knowledge and communication. When confronted with a dial- up phone box, all sorts of confusion arises. Noah’s creation of a treasure map to distract the group and the subsequent discovery of gold all ads to the adventure. I loved the overall message here; yes, you miss things if you spend all your time buried in the internet, but it is useful for things as well. And that ending...leading us to a sequel, maybe, Mr Cottrell-Boyce? I do hope so! I'd love to spend some more time with these characters. I think this book is good because the chapters are cleverly made by them actually being letters to Noah’s parents and vice versa. The chapters are also funny because they all start with the menu of what they are going to eat eg. ’teeny tiny smoked fish’. In fact all of the book is in letters or group chats, which I think is really clever and makes me wonder who the narrator is. Is it Eve because she is reading the letters or is it Noah? I haven’t read a book like this before.

The book is illustrated by Steven Lenton and I liked the illustrations because they aren’t too detailed but you can still see what’s going on really well. Noah creates a treasure map to distract the group and then gold is actually found but who’s is it?. Cottrell Boyce does come up with some marvellous concepts. Stolen art, bags of money, children going into space… master of the ‘wow! Gotta try that’ synopsis.My favourite character is Mr Merriman, their teacher, who always treats everything like a school trip and does not seem to be bothered that they are stranded on an island in the middle of the sea. Millionswas was later turned into a film by Danny Boyle and it features in the Book Trust’s 100 Best Books List for 9-11 year olds. Altogether it is a really funny book. It made me laugh out loud and sometimes my family would ask me what I was laughing at and I’d have to read bits out to them. That’s how funny it is. Suddenly, everyone is confronted by the inescapable prospect of a world without technology. Seven-year-old Noah, an unintentional stowaway, believes that he must be responsible for this calamity, and he sets out to “fix” the internet, under the pretext of looking for treasure. What follows is his account (mainly) of their misadventures on the island involving, amongst other things, falling off cliff tops, riding on sharks and eventually discovering real treasure, the gold of the title.

With no way of knowing when, or if, they’ll be rescued, Noah and his sister’s classmates must learn to work together if they’re going to survive. When Noah finds a treasure map, going on a hunt in search of gold seems like a good place to start. But the mysterious island holds all kind of treasure – some of it found in very unexpected places. On winning the prize Frank Cottrell-Boyce said: “It would be amazing to win this award with any book I'd written but it is a special joy to win it with The Unforgotten Coat, which started life not as a published book at all, but as a gift. Walker gave away thousands of copies in Liverpool - on buses, at ferry terminals, through schools, prisons and hospitals - to help promote the mighty Reader Organisation. We even had the book launch on a train. The photographs in the book, were created by my friends and neighbours - Carl Hunter and Claire Heaney. The story was based on a real incident in a school in Bootle. So everything about it comes from very close to home - even though it's a story about Xanadu! After accidentally stowing away on his big sister’s geography field trip, Noah becomes the hero of the story. When the teacher takes them the wrong way, they lose the rest of the class and somehow end up on an uninhabited island. Then the minibus is destroyed and their teacher goes missing. The letters Noah writes home to his parents recount the challenges they face and the actions they take to survive. Add in a treasure hunt and the need to fix the internet and what you end up with is a fast paced, humorous story of survival without the benefits of modern technology.

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Frank was asked by the Fleming Estate to write the official sequel to Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2012. A writer of comic genius – he has something of Roald Dahl’s magic, but more heart’ – Sunday Telegraph But will Cottrell Boyce show us just what they can do when self-reliant? Read it and find out. And laugh, as I did. Author Anna Kemp introduces The Hollow Hills, the sequel to her dark magical tale, Into Goblyn Wood.