Rooftoppers

Go on an adventure with Katherine Rundell …

Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize | Winner of the Blue Peter Book Award
Shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal | From the winner of the Costa Children's Book Prize

Everyone tells Sophie that she was orphaned in a shipwreck – found floating in a cello case on the English Channel on her first birthday. But Sophie is convinced her mother also survived.

When the Welfare Agency threatens to separate her from her guardian and send her to an orphanage, Sophie takes matters into her own hands, starting with the only clue she has – the address of a cello-maker in Paris. On the run from the authorities, Sophie finds Matteo and his network of rooftoppers – urchins who walk tightropes and live in the sky. In a race across the rooftops of Paris, will they be able to find her mother before it's too late?

Hopeful, inspiring and thrilling in equal measure, this is a classic adventure story about pursuing your dreams and never ignoring a possible.

About the Author

Katherine Rundell is the bestselling author of five children's novels and has won the Costa Children's Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize amongst many others. Katherine spent her childhood in Africa and Europe before taking her degree at the University of Oxford and becoming a Fellow of All Souls College. As well as writing, she studies Renaissance literature and occasionally goes climbing on the rooftops late at night.

About the Illustrator

Marie-Alice Harel is a French illustrator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She teaches illustration at the Edinburgh Drawing School and was the winner of the 2019 Book Illustration Competition.