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  • Published: 2 August 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407097688
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 224

Lob




A beautiful and touching story filled with garden magic from a classic storyteller.

He's older than anyone can tell. Older than the trees. Older than anybody.
For as long as she can remember, Lucy has wanted to catch a glimpse of the mysterious green man who lives in Grandpa Will's garden: Lob.
You have to be very special to see him; that's what Grandpa says. Lucy's parents think Lob's just imaginary, but Lucy knows he exists. And she can't believe it when she finally spots Lob in the gooseberry bushes.

But Lucy's world is about to be shattered by a terrible event. What will happen to Lob now - and will she ever see him again?

Linda Newbery, with the vivid embroidery of Pam Smy's illustrations, has conjured a real green man right out of the woods and stories of legend.

  • Published: 2 August 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407097688
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 224

About the author

Linda Newbery

As a child Linda Newbery was a secret writer, filling exercise books with stories which she hid in her wardrobe. Now she is a published author of over forty books, mainly children's and teenage fiction. She has been shortlisted for many prestigious literary prizes and has won the Costa children's book award.
Linda lives in an Oxfordshire village and enjoys yoga, gardening, walking and the cinema.

Also by Linda Newbery

See all

Praise for Lob

Newbery has stepped into timelessness with her short novel, ostensibly for middle-grade readers, entitled LOB (2010). It is a charming retelling of the Green Man legend, rich and playfully reinterpreted, which also has a contemporary thread

Oxford Companion to Children's Literature

[Linda's] eponymous Lob, made of rain and wind, of time gone and time waiting, embodies regeneration

The Irish Times

Lob will sneak under the skin of cynical early teens

Observer

A tale told as much by Pam Smy's black and white line drawings as by Newbery's quiet, bright, clear prose. The book belongs in that English tradition of writing for children in which relationships, time and nature are explored through gardens

Books For Keeps

An exquisite novel for the more sensitive seven to nine-year-olds

Sunday Telegraph

I found I was thinking about it long after I'd turned the final page, because it's wonderful . . . It's a wonderful story of trusting and believing in the unknown and keeping a legacy alive. You'll remember to look for Lob whenever you hear a rustling of leaves behind you

Guardian

Laced with poems, and beautifully illustrated, this is a magical story of believing in the unknown

Guardian

Linda Newbery tells her story beautifully, evoking empathy and emotion without ever straying into sentimentality

The Scotsman

Newbery holds the reader with her endearing characters, evocative scene-setting and poetic language . . . An uplifting, enchanting book

Oxford Times

One of the most gifted writers around must surely be Linda Newbery and Lob, her latest novel for younger readers, is the kind of book that will inspire in children a deep love of nature and in adults a yearning for the wonderment of childhood

Independent on Sunday

The mystical and beautiful fable is one of my favourite titles of this year

The Bookseller

There is something intensely comforting about this book that I'm sure parents will enjoy as well as children. Especially if they are gardeners!

The Bookbag

There's something timeless about this lovely story, not only in its theme, which links us back to generations past, but also in the telling of it: elegant, sedate, beautifully crafted, filled with a warm kind of hope and old-fashioned charm

The Ultimate Book Guide

Very young gardeners will love Lob, by Linda Newbery, the story of Lucy, Grandpa Will and the mysterious green man who lives in his garden

The Irish Times