LOUIS BESIDE HIMSELF

A highly entertaining book for avid readers who are not yet into 'boys/girls/romance' but who enjoy stories about a group of friends.

Louis’s dad is always trying to build Louis up and sharpen his reflexes with wrestling moves like The Tombstone or the Walls of Jericho. He says Louis must be prepared to stand up for himself, because wham, a fight can spring up anywhere. They wrestle practically every night after dinner, but Louis is better at flexing words than his muscles. He thinks good communication is underrated as a survival tactic. His dad says, 'Oh yeah? And what would you do in the ring, talk your way out?' This summer Louis is put to the test, starting with the Phenomenon of the broken mirror, leading to the Paralysing burglar incident, and finally the night when Louis comes face to face with Peril. '… Now, hissed my dad’s voice, While he’s down on the floor. You have the advantage of surprise. Get him on his back, hook his legs under your arms in a Jericho hold … But my legs had frozen. My heart was hammering. I couldn’t move. Jump on him. Get him from behind, do a drop kick. Now my legs felt like wobbly air, as if I wasn’t inside my body at all. I was Beside Myself.’ Anna Fienberg has written novels for primary and lower secondary students – Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life; Dead Sailors Don’t Bite; Wiggy & Boa; Power to Burn and The Witch in the Lake. Horrendo’s Curse was an Honour Book in the 2003 CBCA awards and has sold well over 30,000 copies. In 2006 Penguin published Number 8. Her 16-book 'Tashi' series for 6 to 8 year olds has sold over 650,000 copies in Australia and has been translated into 20 languages.