The Kin - Hardcover

Dickinson, Peter; Dickson, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399240225 ISBN 13: 9780399240225

Publisher: Putnam Pub Group, 2003

Synopsis

Offers a story about how language and communication came into being after a group of children are driven away from their people by strangers and are forced to start a new life in dangerous and desolate new surroundings without any real guidance. Simultaneous.

About this title

Review

In this ambitious quartet of novels for older children the award-winning author Peter Dickinson takes us back two hundred thousand years to witness the birth of the human race in Africa. The Kins are the first modern human beings and this epic tale starts with their forced exodus from their traditional homelands. Dickinson introduces us to Suth, Noli, Ko and Mana, all children of the Moonhawk Kin. As they roam the vast plains and valleys in search of new "Good Places" where they can peacefully live, so the children confront natural disaster, cruel hardships and brutal enemies, as well as their own developing hopes and fears. Dickinson intersperses his narrative with a series of magical interludes that are the mythical stories the Kin have made up to explain their world to themselves. But it is when the children take centre stage that these stories really come alive. Whether they are eating roasted leg of fox, travelling through the unknowable wilderness or exhibiting acts of essential human kindness in an entirely believable ancient landscape, once again Dickinson's cast of characters is capable of grabbing the reader's imagination and tweaking the heartstrings. --Nick Wroe

Review

“The Kin is a thrilling piece of work. . . . Peter Dickinson has an appetite for large ideas and the power and skill to bring them to life. Dickinson is a writer of great vision.” —Philip Pullman
 
“An exciting read. . . . The real adventure here is the exhilarating mix of ideas the novel so nimbly sets forth.” —Publishers Weekly
 

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Pub Group
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399240225
• ISBN 13: 9780399240225
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Andrew Ian P.
• Number of pages: 640