Charm School [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Bonny is certainly not keen to spend a day at Charm School but her mother has to sit an exam and can't find a babysitter so she bites the bullet and heads off for a day of sheer agony.

As the delightfully nasty Charm School girls--prissy little tinkerbells with fluffy hair and glittery dancing shoes--rev up for the competition to win the glistering tiara of Miss Supreme Queen, the confused and self-conscious Bonny finds herself in the middle of an out-and-out, no-holds-barred, war. Anne Fine has never fought shy of digging for emotional truth in her work and here the author of Madame Doubtfire and Goggle-Eyes doesn't fail the reader for one second as she skilfully takes one day in the life of a group of little girls and gives an exquisite, achingly sad yet robustly comical insight into what makes us all tick. --Susan Harrison

" This ultra-modern tale sparkles and crackles from page one to a dramatic finale."
- "The Bookseller
"Praise for "Bad Dreams":
" [Anne Fine] produces a subtle and absorbing tale."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
Praise for "Up on Cloud Nine":
"
"" England's Children's Laureate again exercises her unsurpassed gift for memorable, complex character studies."
-- "Kirkus Reviews," Starred
" Fine outdoes herself here."
-- "The Horn Book Magazine, "Starred
" Completely absorbing."
-- "School Library Journal," Starred --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

A witty and funny look at the beauty business for children. From one of today's top children's authors, multi-awardwinning Anne Fine --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Bonny has no choice. If her mother is to keep her new job, Bonny must take a one-day course at Charm School. One day at Charm School turns out to be every bit as bad as Bonny had feared. The other girls are scratchy and self-obsessed, and will do anything to win the "glistering tiara".

Who cares if flower earrings are 'Totally Yesterday'?

Bonny doesn't.

Nor does she want to know how to bleach her elbows.

She only wants to make new friends.

But the other girls at CharmSchool are so self-obsessed.

And they'll do anything to win the much-coveted 'Glistering Tiara'...

'Assured and lively... a clarion call against the idea that girls should simply be decorative' Sunday Times

'All of Fine's usual pace and verve' TES

0 440 86400 3

www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Anne Fine has been an acknowledged top author in the children's book world since her first book was published in the mid l970s, and has now written more than forty books and won virtually every major award going, including the Carnegie Medal (more than once), the Whitbread Children's Award, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize and others. The Children's Laureate from 2001-2003, Anne is also very funny and young readers love her lack of hypocrisy about the family and her honesty about how people can behave.She lives in the North-East.

'One of the sharpest and most humorous observers of the human condition writing today for the young' School Librarian

'She is translated into 26 languages and has regularly won every major children's literary award in the land, including the Carnegie Medal twice and the Whitbread Children's Novel award twice . . . There are few more influential, or more unfailingly intelligent, authors at work' Scotsman

'A subversively wicked gift for exploring family tensions' Independent

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.