An enchanting story of a story, Twice Upon a Time is a charming junior fiction novel by award-winning writer James Norcliffe.
An enchanting story of a story, Twice Upon a Time is a charming junior fiction novel by award-winning writer James Norcliffe.
What happens when you find yourself trapped inside a story?
What happens if the only way out is to solve the riddles of the Very Bad Very Good Storyteller, Mr Aesop Sod?
And where, oh where, is Pop?
Ginny and her strange new friend, Digger Dagger, must navigate their way through this upside down, topsy turvy world where Don's Dairy has become Nod's Diary, the fish and chip shop is full of tropical fish tanks and wood chips, and the ghost train at the fun fair really is a ghost train.
How will the story end? Will Ginny and Digger Dagger find the answers they need?
Sometimes the answers are right there in front of you.
Award-winning author James Norcliffe has written a delightful story full of wordplay, old-world charm and imagination, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.
An enchanting story of a story, Twice Upon a Time is a charming junior fiction novel by award-winning writer James Norcliffe.
An enchanting story of a story, Twice Upon a Time is a charming junior fiction novel by award-winning writer James Norcliffe.
What happens when you find yourself trapped inside a story?
What happens if the only way out is to solve the riddles of the Very Bad Very Good Storyteller, Mr Aesop Sod?
And where, oh where, is Pop?
Ginny and her strange new friend, Digger Dagger, must navigate their way through this upside down, topsy turvy world where Don's Dairy has become Nod's Diary, the fish and chip shop is full of tropical fish tanks and wood chips, and the ghost train at the fun fair really is a ghost train.
How will the story end? Will Ginny and Digger Dagger find the answers they need?
Sometimes the answers are right there in front of you.
Award-winning author James Norcliffe has written a delightful story full of wordplay, old-world charm and imagination, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.
An enchanting story of a story, Twice Upon a Time is a charming junior fiction novel by award-winning writer James Norcliffe.
James Norcliffe is an award-winning poet and educator, as well as
an author of children's books. He has been awarded the 2012
University of Otago College of Education's Writer in Residence, and
has been recipient of the 2006 Fellowship at Iowa University and
the 2000 Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University.
In 2003, Norcliffe, with Bernadette Hall, received the inaugural
Christchurch Press Literary Liaisons Honour Award for 'lasting
contribution to literature in the South Island'. Norcliffe has
taught English in Christchurch, China and Brunei. He won the Lilian
Ida Smith Award in 1990, and the New Zealand Poetry Society's
international competition in 1992. He lives in Church Bay with his
wife, Joan Melvyn.
His novelThe Loblolly Boy was described by New Zealand's most
acclaimed children's writer Margaret Mahy as 'a rich fantasy -
alive with original twists surprises and mysteries'. It was also
published in the United States and Australia, won the 2010 NZ Post
Junior Fiction Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Esther
Glen Medal and the Sir Julius Vogel Science Fiction Award. It was a
2010 Storylines Notable Junior Fiction Book.
The Loblolly Boy & the Sorcerer was a finalist in the Junior
Fiction category of the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards for
Children and Young Adults.The Enchanted Flute was published in
2012.
The YA fantasy novel The Assassin of Gleam won the Sir Julius Vogel
Award for the best New Zealand fantasy novel of 2006, and was
shortlisted for the 2007 LIANZA Esther Glen Medal.
In Science Fiction World, Gerard Woods wrote of The Loblolly Boy
that Norcliffe 'has written that rare children's book, as much a
joy for adults to read as for children'.
USA's Booklist described The Loblolly Boy as 'an imaginative and
richly atmospheric fantasy with sympathetic characters. ... a
haunting story that will capture most readers' imaginations'.
'The Loblolly Boy by James Norcliffe is an entrancing, exciting,
unexpected read .... it has a wondrous, magical fairy-tale ambience
... I never quite knew where it was going or how it would be
resolved,' wrote George Ivanoff in Australian Speculative Fiction
in Focus (ASFF).
Fran Knight, writing in Read Plus, 'highly recommended' The
Loblolly Boy as an 'intriguing, engrossing and wholly satisfying
... a highly original fantasy story', while in the same publication
Peter Pledger declared it 'A unique and original fantasy, complete
with adventure, magic and appealing characters, this is a tale that
was hard to put down.'
Reviewing The Assassin of Gleam for the Christchurch Press, Trevor
Agnew wrote that Norcliffe had avoided producing what could have
been 'just another cardboard fantasy cliche' and had 'breathed life
into his characters and situations. The result is a skilfully told
story, with a dark mood and a sense of urgency. It is clear that a
master storyteller is at work from the first sentence . . .'
In New Zealand Books, Heather Murray identified Norcliffe's
'experience as historian and poet to create a logical, believable
and exciting story out of an alienating and threatening world'. She
concluded- 'Though Norcliffe creates frightening worlds, he grounds
his story and characters in acceptable reality through using known
language . . .'.
Dave Pope, in Hawkes Bay Today, noted that 'like all good stories
this one has a plot within a plot within a plot. It keeps the
reader wanting more, as minor characters are drawn into this dark
tale.'Felix and the Red Rats is a riveting adventure which sees the
margins between fiction and reality, and the past and the present,
dangerously blur.
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