Tulip Touch

Reissued for the Originals series of powerful teen fiction. Nobody wants Tulip in their gang. She skives off school, cheeks the teachers and makes herself unpopular with her classmates by telling awful lies. None of this matters to Natalie who finds Tulip exciting. At first she doesn't care that other people are upset and unnerved by Tulip's bizarre games, but as the games become increasingly sinister and dangerous, Natalie realises that Tulip is going too far. Much too far. Racing, in fact, to the novel's shocking ending.

This novel will make children aged between 11 and 14 think about the dangers of peer pressure and the collective responsibility of society for unhappy children. As always, Fine teaches her lessons by making her readers feel. -- Nicolette Jones * The Sunday Times * Tulip is the violent child about to crack, the child who echoes famous cases in our recent news. What elevates this subtle telling is that Fine manages to convey sympathetically the probable reasons why Tulip is the way she is. * Books for Keeps *.

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Anne Fine read Politics and History at Warwick and then became a teacher. Her first novel was published in 1975 and today she is one of the UK's most successful children's writers. She has won many awards including two Carnegie Medals, the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Prize. GOGGLE-EYES was serialised on TV and MADAME DOUBTFIRE was made into a hit Hollywood movie. Anne lives in County Durham.