This collection of eighteen stories introduces young readers to the best in both classic and contemporary fantasy. Featuring extracts from enduring classics such as Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, and Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, this anthology provides the perfect sample of a very popular genre. Carefully selected by Diana Wynne Jones, each story is sure to delight, enchant, and entice youngsters into the imaginative world of fantasy fiction.

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Selected by:   Diana Wynne Jones
Imprint:   Kingfisher
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 193mm,  Width: 131mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   272g
ISBN:  

9780753461440

ISBN 10:   0753461447
Pages:   280
Publication Date:   November 2007
Audience:   Children / Juvenile
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Stock Indefinitely
Availability:   Awaiting stock  
Our supplier is currently out of stock. You can order it and we will ship it to you upon arrival.

A rollicking, consistently surprising biography of an American cowboy who, in an unlikely turn of history, ended his life a hero of British aviation.Colonel Samuel Cody wasnt exactly a con man, but he possessed all the same skillsincluding a nicely developed sense of when to abandon strict factuality in the interest of telling a good story. For example, it certainly improved his stock as a showman (a career into which he drifted after working as a cowboy and prospector) that he happened to share the last name of his much more famous sometime employer, William Buffalo Bill Cody. Never mind, wryly observes Jenkins (Daniel Day-Lewis, 1995), that he was born Samuel Cowdery in Iowa in 1867 and shared no kinship whatever with the man he called Uncle Bill. Cody had a talent for self-promotion, to be sure, but he also had a genuine, informed passion for kite-flying (picked up as a pastime to while away the hours on the Great Plains) that soon became (once he figured out how to insert himself into one of his soaring contraptions) a sure way to draw a crowd. Cody took his kite-flying show to England, where he earned a large following and a handsome income. He was less successful as a businessman, but he managed to keep one step ahead of a small army of creditors as he labored to build a powered aircraft. Undeterred by Wilbur Wrights preemptive flight at Kitty Hawk, Cody soldiered on to build the craft he called a flying cathedral, and with it he became the first man in England to take to the air, encouraging other inventors to adapt his designs. When he died in a crash in 1913, Britain gave him a funeral with full military honors.Jenkins does a fine job of threading Codys personal saga into the histories of the Wild West and world aviation, weaving a pleasingly reader-friendly narrative. (Kirkus Reviews)

Henry James is quoted in the preface to this book: 'What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?' Samuel Franklin Cody, nicknamed Colonel, was a character for whom the epithet is particularly apt. A forgotten hero in the 1990s, he was the first man to fly in England - at the helm of a plane which became known as the Flying Cathedral. Before that, his career had been colourful: in the States, he'd been a showman who competed against Wyatt Earp and Annie Oakley, and in Britain, he brought a touch of the Wild West to high society. He met his end in typically exhibitionist style, falling 500 feet when his new seaplane snapped in half. Jenkins sets Cody in a lively context, drawing on contemporary sources, artwork and conversation to re-create the events of an extraordinary life. (Kirkus UK)