Dog in No-Man's-Land

Damian first sharpened his pencil as an advertising copywriter before swapping ads for children's newspapers. He edited the Young Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph's award-winning children's supplement (before one wrinkly Telegraph reader told him she used it to line her dog basket). Nowadays he works as a freelance writer, editor and children's book consultant, and heads up the creative side of The Reading Agency's Summer Reading Challenge, the UK's biggest reading initiative for children. His YA novel Life, Interrupted (Piccadilly Press, 2009) was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award, the Warwickshire Book Award, the North East Teenage Book Award, the Southern Schools Book Award, the Leeds Book Award and was commended by the Sheffield Children's Book Award. He lives with his wife in north London and has two children who are too old for school but not old enough to leave home (yet). But he's working on it.

Well written and researched, a sympathetically told, warm-hearted story of a boy and his dog in a time of war. The horrors of the war are there too, but the friendship, loyalty and camaraderie of life in the trenches shines through. Beautifully and evocatively illustrated by the wonderful Gary Blythe, with the letters to open and read providing a real sense of time and place. Like 'War Horse' before it, this will lead children into finding out more about the First World War and the brave men and animals that were involved.