Toby Alone

Toby Alone Synopsis

An awards-laden adventure of heroism, friendship and survival - with a powerful ecological message - set in a captivating miniature world. Toby Lolness is just one and a half millimetres tall, and he's the most wanted person in his world, the Great Oak Tree. When Toby's father makes a ground-breaking discovery, tapping into the very heart of the Tree's energy, he also realises that exploiting it - as some tree dwellers are doing - could do permanent damage to their world. Refusing to reveal the secret of his intention to an enraged community, the family is exiled. But one man is determined to get hold of the forbidden knowledge … and his plan is to destroy the Tree. Now Toby’s parents have been imprisoned and sentenced to death. Only Toby has managed to escape, but for how long?

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A message from the author:
I've described my novel as an adventure story, a chase, written as an escape from the reality I see from my study. I wanted the world I created to have the same laws as ours, and strangely my characters find themselves facing the same difficulties, problems and worries as we find on our own green - or less and less green - planet. The tree is a living organism, and a growing consciousness takes place little by little. There is a whole geography to the tree, a social order - the Lower Branches, the High Branches, new cities springing up on the outskirts of the traditional villages - and re-reading the book, I come to recognise that it has a serious message for us facing our own world at the start of this millennium.