Synopses & Reviews
Charlie Ashanti is the son of two scientists who are kidnapped as the result of a dramatic discovery they've made (the cure for asthma, which is rampant in this near-future world). Ten-year-old Charlie decides to go in search of them, and uses his ability to speak Cat (which he's had ever since he was scratched by a leopard as a baby) to gain helpful information. The local cats of London point him in the right direction and even deliver messages from him to his parents and back. When Charlie finds himself aboard a floating circus that's heading to Paris, he befriends the circus lions, who become his further accomplices. He'll help them escape the circus as this first book in a trilogy draws to a close.
Review
(Narrator) Simon Jones compels listeners through the excitement with smooth pacing and a rhythm that sustains the perfect level of suspense.
Review
(Jones's) imaginative presentation weaves together the florid vocabulary and intricate plot details as he brings diverse characters, human and animal, vividly to life. Booklist
About the Author
ZIZOU CORDER is the pen name for a mother-daughter team of authors. Louisa Young grew up in London and studied history at Cambridge. She has written another trilogy for adults featuring a belly-dancing, motorcycle-riding single mom (
Baby Love, Desiring Cairo, and
Tree of Pearls), as well as a non-fiction book,
The Book of the Heart.
Her ten-year-old daughter, Isabel Adomakoh Young contributed plot and character details, some of which mirror her own life--like Charlie, the hero of Lionboy Isabel is the child of an English woman and an African man and, also like Charlie, she suffers asthma.
The pen name Zizou Corder comes from Isabel's pet lizard, Zizu. They all live together in London.Originally from Wiltshire, England, award-winning narrator SIMON JONES is perhaps most often recognized as 'Arthur Dent' in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (both radio and TV versions) or as 'Bridey' in the classic TV mini-series "Brideshead Revisited".
He has been seen in such films as Privates in Parade, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Miracle on 34th Street (remake), and Devil's Own; most recently on TV as a judge in OZ and as 'C.S. Lewis' in PBS's A Question of God; and regularly on stage, including 10 major roles on Broadway. In 2004 his audio book narrations won him AudioFile magazine's "Golden Voice" award, and Publisher's Weekly "Narrator of the Year."