Midnight for Charlie Bone

The Children of the Red King series of books begins with Midnight for Charlie Bone. The stories focus on Charlie Bone, aged ten, one of the many descendents of the Red King and an inheritor of part of his magical powers. Charlie is determined to find his lost father, Lyell, who stood alone against his family in trying to prevent what he considered to be a crime.

Lyell was horribly punished for his courage and Charlie almost suffers the same fate. But his good nature and indomitable spirit win him loyal friends, and together they endeavour to overcome the evil that threatens them. The children that help Charlie come from very different backgrounds and ethnic groups.

Olivia, Fidelio, Benjamin and Emma have their own battles to win and their small victories are interwoven with Charlies long and dangerous quest. Their struggles, sometimes scary and sometimes humorous, take place during five terms spent at Bloors Academy, an ancient school where the endowed descendants of the Red King can be watched and controlled. The evil Bloors have many willing accomplices among the pupils; werewolves, hypnotists, mind-readers and witches do their best to defeat Charlie.Not least of his troubles are the machinations of his sinister grandmother and her three grim sisters.

Here the eternal conflict within families, the battles of siblings divided by jealousy and by their perceptions of good and evil, right and wrong, are resolved and an extraordinary family is healed by the courage of Charlie Bone.

About the Author

Jenny Nimmo is an award-winning children’s writer whose work has been adapted for stage and screen. Her trilogy THE SNOW SPIDER won the Smarties Prize. ‘She has become a great drawer of characters and a powerful writer of fantasy and more; she knows how to use humour and atmosphere and to enclose her readers in a story.’ - Wendy Cooling