Shortlisted for the 2011 Red Maple Award
Business has never been better for Nieve’s parents, professional weepers, but despite the perks even Nieve wonders why so many more people seem unhappy. Nor can she ignore the signs that they are coming. There’s the dark fry which have taken over her back pond, moving as if following a single thought, the spiders which come to cover everything, right down to her toothbrush, the black weeds which strangle all colour out of the garden. And why has everyone become so forgetful? But when a couple of strangers come to town, trailing night along behind them, and people, including Nieve’s best friend Malcolm, begin to disappear, it falls to Nieve and a rather motley group of unexpected companions to try to save them. Their adventures take them to the Black City where Nieve discovers that even she is not exactly as she seems. Terry Griggs’s Nieve, fabulously illustrated by Alexander Griggs-Burr, introduces a charming and adventurous new heroine and a fantastical world that may well seem all too real.
