| ...the whole book is very delicately balanced. There is loss, discussion of the afterlife, romance, adventure, comedy and it's all rolled very neatly into a very credible story. I would highly recommend this book to a teenager.
Rob Allwright Soteria Magazine
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'It's not really kidnapping, is it? He'd have to be alive for it to be proper kidnapping.'
Kenny, Sim and Blake are about to embark on a remarkable journey of friendship. Stealing the urn containing the ashes of their best friend Ross, they set out from Cleethorpes on the east coast to travel the 261 miles to the tiny hamlet of Ross in Dumfries and Galloway. After a depressing and dispiriting funeral they feel taking Ross to Ross will be a fitting memorial for a 15 year-old boy who changed all their lives through his friendship. Little do they realise just how much Ross can still affect life for them even though he's now dead.
Drawing on personal experience Keith Gray has written an extraordinary novel about friendship, loss and suicide, and about the good things that may be waiting just out of sight around the corner . . . |
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| A brilliantly crafted story of friendship, loss, and the illogocality of the teenage brain!
Carousel
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| An elegiac rite of passage novel
School House
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| An exceptionally involving and affecting novel
Books for Keeps
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| As Keith well knows, you don't hook a teenage audience with a heavy tome on 'issues'. Which is why Ostrich Boys is light on the preaching and heavy on the cracking tale.
Evening News Edinburgh
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Every so often a book comes along and reminds you why became a reviewer in the first place. You find something special and the urge to tell everyone else all about it simply spills out of you. Ostrich Boys is such a book...this book isn't schmaltzy, or saccharine. It's perfect. Right from the title Ostrich Boys inhabits the teenage emotional landscape with unerring precision and great sensitivity... It's beautifully plotted... I'm in awe at the intelligence behind the structure, with little pieces of the puzzle slotting into place at just the right moment. I can't think of a word that was wasted.
5 stars
Jill Murphy The Bookbag
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| High adventures in every sense fuel the storyline…but the book's strength is in how Gray darkens the narrative and leaves you wondering if Ross's death was deliberate or accidental…This deeper, serious mood turns an adventure story into something much more. Ostrich Boys deserves its recent shortlisting for a Costa Book Award.
Irish Times
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| Humorous, poignant, brilliant - not to be missed.
Bookfest (CBI)
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| Imbued with warmth and well-placed moments of hilarity…Keith Gray has delivered a truly enjoyable novel that deals with the weighty issues of untimely death and suicide, with an inherent understanding of teenage emotion.
Lindsay Stainer The Bookseller
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| It is unusual to find a story that takes on the emotional lives of teenage boys, but Keith Gray’s Ostrich Boys does so with a light touch.
Sue Steel The Bookseller
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| Keith Gray is an exceptional writer for teens. In Ostrich Boys he applies his light touch to big themes, as a bunch of 15-year-old youths take revenge on the people who made the life of their friend Ross a misery and then showed up at his funeral. Funny, page-turning and profound.
Nicolette Jones The Sunday Times
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| Loss, suicide and teenage angst are dealt with sensitively here, and while it seems like a depressing read to start, this book is full of hope and humour.
The Sunday Tribune
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| One of the highlights of the year . . . Reminiscent of On the Road and Catcher in the Rye, this is a seminal book about modern youth . . . Humorous, credible and immensely humane, this is a pertinent and profound work, instantly worthy of the label “modern classic”
Jake Hope The Bookseller
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| One of the most admirable, affecting and life-affirming books published this year.
The Bookseller
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| One of those wonderful books that resounds with the kind of emotional truth that makes the best fiction so good.
Story Time Books for Kids
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| Ostrich Boys is a finely crafted piece of literature, the writing is truly outstanding and the build up of tension as the problems the boys encounter mount up leads to frantic page turning. This really is one of those books you can’t put down.
Eve Harvey Vulpes Libris
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| Ostrich Boys is a rite of passage tale told with humour, warmth and sensitivity.
Aberdeen Evening Express
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| Ostrich Boys is a rite of passage tale told with humour, warmth and sensitivity.
Edinburgh Evening News
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| Ostrich Boys is both hillarious and poignant.
Lesley Agnew Ham and High Series
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| Ostrich Boys is funny and fast-paced, tender but never sentimental.
The Herald
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| This is a clever book laced with a fair dose of rather dark humour which ultimately sees the surviving trio facing up to some crucial questions about their own lives and motives
Suffolk Free Press
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| This is a credible story that could have been, if handled less skilfully, too dark. But Gray, with excellent timing, keeps the plot light and humourous, despite dealing with suicide, loss of friendship and bullying.
The Daily Telegraph
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| This is a fascinating spooky story you really believe in with an amazing ending. It keeps you on the edge of your seat from the very beginning.
Newcastle Upon Tyne Evening Chronicle
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| This is a gripping tale of loss, guilt, revenge and redemption and contains touches of gallows humour that will be of particular appeal to the teen audience. Gray has managed to maintain the high standard of his previous work and while this text does not alienate teenage girs it will be of particular appeal to teenage boys.
School Librarian
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| This recently published novel is quite a delight...Ostrich boys mixes adventure with the intricacies of teenage friendships...the ending is realistic and wonderful rather than predictable and expected.
Chicklish
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| This remarkable, hard-hitting story gives a grim and realistic picture of teenage realities, including betrayal, guilt and suicide. It also, however, conveys the power of adolescent friendship, hope and acceptance of responsibility.
Irish Independent
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| What must be one of 2008's most striking and most cleverly plotted young adult novels.
INIS
More
Information
Definitions • Adventure stories •
12 + year olds •
Previous
ISBN: 0099456575
Publication date: 03/07/2008 • 368 pages • B format
• EAN: 9780099456575
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