Down Came a Blackbird

Nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Nicholas Wildes third novel Down Came a Blackbird probes deeply into the mind of an unloved boy whose nightmares fuse with the lost dreams of those who lived in an old dark house long before he was born.James woke up in pitch darkness. Hed been dreaming. Hed been on his own in a silent black room and a noise had come scratching its way towards him. He shrank back in his pillow. The noise in his dream was still out there now outside the window.The blackbird.Nightmares. Hed always had them but they were worse here more real than ever in this place hed been sent to - his great-uncles house deep in the country. But one place was the same as any other for thirteen-year-old rejects like him.And now hed been pushed around for long enough; he was going to get equal. If life could hurt him he could hurt it back.Hed show every living thing in this house and garden what hurting was really about.Maybe his nightmares would stop then. And maybe the blackbird that came seeking him out in the darkness would at last go away.This award-winning deeply moving and quielty chilling novel was filmed as The Ghost of Greville Lodge starring George Cole and Prunella Scales.