Bøker av Eric Johns

This book is full of poems, stories, riddles and things which it is difficult to say what they are except that they are surprising! Eric wrote them to entertain his grandchildren during the covid-19 pandemic lockdowns from November 2020 to March 2021 when schools were closed and many children had to do their lessons at home. Only three of the poems are about the pandemic itself, the rest of them and the stories are about all sorts of strange things so that anyone reading them could forget about being lockdown prisoners! Rosie the Hippo was always hungry and ate everything she came across which one day led to something very strange happening to her. Cheddar the donkey wanted a job like the other animals on the farm and they found him a most surprising one. Wally Wheelbarrow never went anywhere without his wheelbarrow which was very fortunate on the day he met the Queen. You can read about their remarkable adventures and those of Miss Chippo Lata and Porky who escaped from the sausage factory, and the dancing table, and the walking tree, and Pippa who met a mermaid who was not a bit like she had expected, and lots more in this book of poems, stories and riddles. There's also a recipe using ice cream!

There are 2 stories in this book.1.The Big Sniff. When Abby sniffs she can smell things that aren't there - such as horses when the road is full of cars, which is very worrying. She decides to sniff very carefully, but one day she forgets and takes a huge sniff - and sees men on horseback charging towards her. Then something terrible happens.2. The Last Quarryman. John wants to explore the tunnels where quarrymen like his great-grandfather used to quarry stone. He's been warned never to go down the old tunnels because they are dangerous. But that's just what he plans to do. Then his snobby cousin Elaine comes to stay and that messes up everything and things get more dangerous than he ever imagined possible - and it's up to him to put things right, but he's not sure he has the courage to do that.3. There are also two poems in this book which are really very short stories.

""All this happened to me last summer. I really lost it. It was like I'd blown every circuit in my head.""Mike can't stop thinking about sex: his whole life is an emotional seesaw. And then he meets a student nurse who doles out pills like there's no tomorrow. Before he knows it he's stolen a wad of money and is riding happily through the countryside in a horse-drawn caravan. But is this really the trip of a lifetime or one of his hallucinations or a journey to Hell?

"At least you once had a life - and perhaps one day I'll have one," Seb tells his great-grandmother, but only occasional words draw a response. Her bitterness at being placed in an old people's home is fading as her memory melts away. During Seb's visits she scatters hints of a life she has kept secret from her family. Did she once have another identity? What did she do in the war? Why does no one know? And what has she forgotten that torments her? Seb tries to unravel her past and reconstruct her life. At times she falls silent and drifts away clinging to a fragment of memory. Then Seb is left to soliloquise about the dissatisfactions of his own life. He describes his attempts to begin a relationship with a girl - any girl - and in desperation hits on the idea of an arranged romance. But his efforts are being sabotaged.

"Quernstone is our valley. It's a different world from what most people know...But Fay is different from everyone else in Quernstone. It's as though she's two people in one." When someone threatened to kidnap Fay she turned to the Ooser to save her and ordered Gavin to wear the ancient mask. What happened next meant disaster if anyone found out. As usual, Gavin felt it was Fay or the Ooser in control of his life. He could have done without more problems because he had enough of his own - like a stepfather who was trying to destroy him.

Gary and Lynn were the first to have the new sort of dream. It was after they'd held the egg-stone. But that was only the start. Soon they discovered that they had the gift of mindreading. Then they found that those who didn't have the gift felt threatened by them. Even their own families wanted to control them. Their most dangerous enemy was a teacher at school. There was no one they could trust. Can those who learn to read minds ever lead normal lives again? An exciting story for ages 9 to 12.