Lionboy (Lionboy Trilogy)

Product Description Corder, Zizou About the Author ZIZOU CORDER is the pen name for a mother-daughter team of authors. Louisa Young grew up in London and studied history at Cambridge. She has written another trilogy for adults featuring a belly-dancing, motorcycle-riding single mom ( Baby Love, Desiring Cairo, and Tree of Pearls), as well as a non-fiction book, The Book of the Heart. Her ten-year-old daughter, Isabel Adomakoh Young contributed plot and character details, some of which mirror her own life—like Charlie, the hero of Lionboy Isabel is the child of an English woman and an African man and, also like Charlie, she suffers asthma. The pen name Zizou Corder comes from Isabel's pet lizard, Zizu. They all live together in London. Originally from Wiltshire, England, award-winning narrator SIMON JONES is perhaps most often recognized as ‘Arthur Dent’ in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (both radio and TV versions) or as ‘Bridey’ in the classic TV mini-series “Brideshead Revisited”. He has been seen in such films as Privates in Parade, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Miracle on 34th Street (remake), and Devil’s Own; most recently on TV as a judge in OZ and as ‘C.S. Lewis’ in PBS’s A Question of God; and regularly on stage, including 10 major roles on Broadway. In 2004 his audio book narrations won him AudioFile magazine's "Golden Voice" award, and Publisher’s Weekly "Narrator of the Year." Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Lionboy By Zizou Corder HighBridge Audio Copyright © 2003 Zizou CorderAll right reserved. ISBN: 9781565118300 Chapter OneOne Saturday afternoon in September Charlie's mum was on a ladderin the backyard, doing things to plants halfway up the wall.Charlie didn't know what, or care. He liked the yard, the gorgeoushoney-lemon smell of the flowers, and the great Christmas treethat hung over the back wall, with its shiny silver and green andpurple fruits that he would harvest toward midwinter and sell atthe market. He liked climbing around in the tree and in the ruinsbeyond, running down to the river, and talking to the cats that liveddown there. But he didn't care what his mum was doing on the ladder-untilhe heard a shriek and a clatter and a rude word, and heran out to see. His mum was on all fours, on the fallen ladder, on the ground,with festoons of the honey-smelling plant around her, her red hairwild and her face as white as ice. "Stupid, stupid," she was muttering. "No you're not," said Charlie. He offered her his hand and shepulled up to her feet, wincing. "You wouldn't be a professor if youwere stupid." "Clever people can do stupid things," she said. "Let me into thehouse." She hobbled inside and Charlie followed, worried but not worried,because his mum was the strongest, cleverest, bravest personin the world, apart from his dad, of course, and if anyone couldhandle falling off a ladder, she could. "Owwwww," she said. Charlie had already passed her the aloe, apiece of chocolate, and a small bottle of her secret shock remedy,which she made in her laboratory and which smelled of comfortand brandy and sweet winter herbs. "Best take a look," she said, and slid carefully out of the longleather breeches she always wore for outdoor work. "Owww," they both said, at the sight of the raw red scratches,the pinky purple swellings, and the nasty gashes that adorned hershin. Charlie handed over a clean paper towel and Mum dabbed ather wound. "Bring me some Bloodstopper Lotion," she said. "Twenty-sevenRed. It's in the rack." She handed Charlie the keys to her lab. Charliesmiled. Mum, Professor Magdalen Start, PhD, MD, PQRST,LPO, TP, kept her laboratory locked on strict instructions of thegovernment, indeed of the Empire, because her work was so importantthat no one was to be allowed to know anything about it.Except of course for Charlie's dad, Aneba Ashanti, Doctor of Endotericaand Tropical Sciences at the University of Accra in Ghana(currently on sabbatical at London Uni