Gene Kemp – författare

An engaging classroom playscript. When friend Danny steals a tenner and Dad stands for the local council, it's only the start of a turbulent term for Tyke Tiler. And with the discovery of a disused mill, a smelly old marrow bone, a runaway mouse called Fatty, and a conveniently abandoned stack of test papers, Tyke certainly makes this term one to remember...New, innovative activities specifically tailored to support the KS3 Framework for Teaching English and help students to fulfil the Framework objectives. Activities include work on Speaking and Listening, close text analysis, and the structure of playscripts, and act as a springboard for personal writing.

Get ready for Halloween with these terrifying tales. . . Have you checked under your bed? Made sure there's nothing hiding in your wardrobe? Good. Then you should be safe to read this book... Settle down for the 14 ghostly stories lurking behind the glow in the dark cover...Enter the terrifying world of the supernatural and meet an unnerving array of ghosts and ghouls, including a Victorian child with disturbing powers, two children with a gruesome plan, and a bizarre ghost puppy. These shuddering short stories come from highly acclaimed authors, including:Gene Kemp Joan Aiken Penelope Lively Michael Morpurgo Ray BradburyAre you brave enough to make it through all 14 stories?

The Mink War, Gene Kemp's first narrative poem, tells how the animal inhabitants of Whitsman's Wood are forced to band together and do battle with an army of mink on the run. Its verse is at once energetic and colourful and demonstrates the versatility of her skill as a writer. As Gillian Cross has said: 'Gene Kemp has addressed a wide range of readers in a variety of genres. She has proved herself to be inventive and imaginative; she is a very funny writer who writes with a passionate concern for dignity and justice; there is a large space in her work for the underprivileged and the marginalized, and a grittiness in their representation which refuses any reader temptation to sentimentalize them.'

Drawing on the author's memories of her own childhood, Gene Kemp's The Well is the account of Annie Sutton's growing up in a Midlands village during the years before the Second World War. Peopled with Annie's parents, her much-loved if sometimes bossy brother Tom, and three grown-up sisters, this hilarious yet perceptive book captures perfectly Annie's child's-eye view of the world. It is yet more proof of Gene Kemp's prodigious writing talent; as written in the Guardian, 'Gene Kemp is faultless on the mysterious, transient vocabulary of the young'.

At Cricklepit School Juniper feels safe with Ranjit and the reassuring presence of teachers like Mr Merchant and Miss Plum. But at home life is sometimes as frightening as her dreams, which start like beautiful fairy tales but always end in terror.As a small child she always loved the story of 'The Juniper Tree', for all its sadness, feeling her name linked them together. Now it raises disturbing echoes in her life, and she dare not tell even Ranjit what she fears and hopes.Juniper is a powerful and haunting book which makes a notable addition to Gene Kemp's stories about the pupils of Cricklepit School.

Cricklepit Combined School has seen its fair share of 'problem cases' - Tyke Tyler, Gowie Corby, Charlie Lewis and Juniper Cantello. But when Ferret is marched by his dad to the front door on his first day, feeling sick with apprehension, he doesn't know that he too will become one of its heroes.His big problem is that he can't read - not that he doesn't want to, he just can't. And then there is the bullying: Magnus and his gang stealing kids' money, while the teachers all think he can do no wrong. Thank goodness, then, for Mint and Beany, and Minty's mum ... and Sir.This fifth story about Cricklepit Combined, immortalized so wonderfully in The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, is vintage Gene Kemp, with all the humour, pathos, vivid language and gritty realism of its predecessors.'Gene Kemp remains a first-rate storyteller.' Naomi Lewis, Observer

Jason Bodger is the boss of class 4Z and the terror of student teachers, until the fateful day when 4Z visit the Priory. While the rest of the class see an ancient building with a few medieval relics, Jason sees a girl walking towards him on a non-existent beam, and is never the same again.Eight centuries before, Mathilda de Chetwynde is born in her father's castle. Ignored by her sisters, she grows up beautiful and daring, roaming the forest until her father returns home from the Crusades with his villainous heir, Antacill. Then begins the series of disasters that will consign Mathilda to a convent and bring her so strangely into contact with Jason Bodger ...Gene Kemp always writes superbly about dreadful boys and independent-willed girls. Here, in the fabulous and strange story of Jason Bodger and the Priory Ghost, Jason and Mathilda meet in a version of the Middle Ages that has a wild and vivid comic poetry all of its own.

'This is a peace house,' reads the notice on the Williamses front door. But as Sara says, 'Who needs nukes? We got Dad.'Dad certainly is noisy, a genial but dangerous thunderstorm. Ma, though less alarming, is voluble in the extreme, living in a world of good causes and positive thinking. Sara - beautiful, clever and efficient - is everyone's ideal girl. And Pete takes refuge in his bedroom, with his elderly pets, ancient magazines and cassette player, and just tries to shut it all out.The day his O-Level results arrive he has more reason than usual to retreat from life. And yet - partly because of the forgotten toast under the lighted grill - that's the very day that Pete begins to emerge into the new world of sixth form college, astounded to find himself the centre of a group that includes gorgeous Verna, confident Nick, crazy Claire and, unfortunately, Oliver and his henchman Kenny.No Place Like is Gene Kemp's first novel for teenagers, but displays that unique combination of riotous comedy, human sympathy and natural realism that has made books such as The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler so beloved by young readers.