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Find out moreA powerful, gripping and tense futuristic novel about a world which has gone mad, a world where life is forever except for the likes of Peter and Anna (who shouldn’t be there at all according to the declaration) who are struggling to escape the past in order to find a better future. The Declaration is a chilling, dystopian view of how life may be in the not too far off future, reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and PD James's The Children of Men but written for a young teenage audience. It’s a novel that highlights many issues which affect us today in modern Britain: the obsession with youth and beauty; our pill-popping culture where each ailment can be remedied with some unknown chemical cure; the over-population of the earth; our age-old fear of teenage culture. The author, Gemma Malley has expressed quite brilliantly and concisely these many different issues in this ground-breaking, mesmerizing and compelling novel.
To find out even more about this series click here to visit a site created by the publisher.
Click here to download a document where Gemma talks about the inspriation behind the Declaration series.
Imagine this: death is no longer inevitable and all children are an abomination. Imagine this: there are drugs which stop the onset of ageing and because of this, there's no room left in the world for youth and renewal and that most natural cycle of life: birth, youth, middle age, death. This is Anna Covey's world.
Anna is a Surplus, and in effect should never have been born at all. Like all Surpluses, Anna lives locked away in a borstal-like Surplus Hall, where Surpluses are forced to make amends for their parents' selfish act of having had them at all. Having known nothing else, Anna accepts her dark fate, the lack of light and laughter and freedom which is her world. Until one day a new inmate arrives and Anna's life as she has known it is thrown into chaos. Is Anna brave enough to accept what the mysterious new boy is telling her and will he manage to free her from the lies which bind her?
Malley’s unusual debut is a haunting and suspenseful page-turner - The Times
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Gemma Malley is a really distinctive voice in the world of children’s books. She brings a powerfully intelligent approach to her stories and never ‘dumbs down’ the complexity of her philosophical and political debates, but she does it in the context of a brilliantly plot driven character focused story which carries the reader along through the narrative in an utterly compelling way.
Her books challenge the reader to think about the world and current issues that face us all, the quest for eternal youth, the overpopulation of our planet, the need for us each to take responsibility for our actions as well as for the actions of the governments we put in place. She allows the reader to explore the story and at the same time really explore their own opinions.
Gemma Malley has created four exceptionally fine novels in the short time she has been writing and I firmly believe that it is only the beginning of her long and stellar career.
Sarah Odedina Publishing Director Bloomsbury Children’s Books
ISBN: | 9780747587750 |
Publication date: | 3rd September 2007 |
Author: | Gemma Malley |
Publisher: | Bloomsbury Publishing Plc |
Format: | Hardback |
Pagination: | 304 pages |
Suitable for: | 11+ readers, 13+ readers |
Recommendations: | Debuts of the Month, eBooks |
Gemma Malley studied Philosophy at Reading University before working as a journalist. She edited several business magazines and contributed regularly to publications including Company Magazine and The Sunday Telegraph before moving to the civil service, where she held a senior position within Ofsted, the education and care watchdog. She is married to Mark, the headmaster of a preparatory school in North West London. Click here to download a document where Gemma talks about the inspiration behind the Declaration series.Q & AWhat are your favourite children's books and why?It's difficult to come up with favourites because different books were ...
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