• RELATED STORIES

• Publishers donate Nook e-books to Get London Reading

  Major publishers are donati...

• Children reading more on screen than print, NLT finds

  The growth in children&rsqu...

• Clarke joins Top That!

  Vanessa Clarke, previously ...

• Orion Children's buys middle-grade debut

  Orion Children's Books ...

• Bloomsbury to expand partnership with National Archives

  Bloomsbury and the National...

New Mark Haddon book for David Fickling

23.04.09 | Katie Allen

David Fickling Books has bought a new title for younger readers by Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

The new title, Boom, follows the adventures of two boys who discover their teachers talking in code when they bug the staff room. It will be illustrated by Haddon, who is also a professional cartoonist.

Boom was first published in 1992 under the title Gridzbi Spudvetch!. In a foreword to the book, Haddon writes: “It was a ridiculous thing to call a book. No one knew how to pronounce it. And no one knew what it meant until they'd read the story. As a result, only 23 people bought the book."

Haddon was persuaded to revisit the story after receiving a letter from a teacher who always read it to her classes. The author said he changed “pretty much every sentence in the book".
“I'd also come up with a new title. It means something even if you haven't read the story. And everyone can pronounce it," he added.

• children's
• David Ficking
• Katie Allen
• Mark Haddon