Junk - Melvin Burgess [0]
Praise for Junk
‘A powerful talent who offers few easy solutions’ – The Times
‘Bold and cunningly structured – a real novel with an unpatronising tone that makes it accessible to a wide range of older readers’ – Guardian
‘Uncompromising, but utterly convincing… the most talked about children’s book for years proves that the complexities of the drug culture are more effectively explored in fiction than in preachy documentaries’ – Mail on Sunday
‘Brilliantly and sensitively written, it encompasses the raw, savage and ecstatic world of the adolescent mind, taking the reader through first-person accounts of an “adventure” that leads to addiction… A superbly crafted and important book’ – The Times Educational Supplement
‘It is believable and rivetingly readable. I couldn’t put it down’ – Nina Bawden, Evening Standard
PUFFIN MODERN CLASSICS
JUNK
Melvin Burgess is regarded as one of the best writers in contemporary children’s literature. He was born in 1954 and was brought up in Sussex and Berkshire. After leaving school at eighteen he began training as a journalist. He then had occasional jobs, mainly in the building industry. Melvin started writing in his twenties and wrote on and off for fifteen years before having his first book, The Cry of the Wolf, published in 1990. In 1997 his controversial bestseller Junk won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal. It was also shortlisted for the 1998 Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year. Four of his novels have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal: The Cry of the Wolf, An Angel for May The Baby and Fly Pie and The Ghost Behind the Wall.
Melvin now writes full time and lives in Manchester with his wife and their two children.
Other books by Melvin Burgess
BLOODTIDE
BURNING ISSY
THE CRY OF THE WOLF
KITE
LADY: MY LIFE AS A BITCH
LOVING APRIL
TIGER, TIGER
For younger readers
AN ANGEL FOR MAY
THE BABY AND FLY PIE
THE EARTH GIANT
THE GHOST BEHIND THE WALL
MELVIN BURGESS
JUNK
PUFFIN
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Andersen Press Limited 1996
Published in Penguin Books 1997
Published in Puffin Modern Classics 2003
10
Copyright © Melvin Burgess, 1996
Introduction copyright © Julia Eccleshare 2003
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-0-141-31593-5
Introduction
by Julia Eccleshare
Puffin Modern Classics series editor
Junk: the very title was enough to shock when it was published in 1996. Drugs are the enemy – and especially the enemy of the young. To put the word ‘Junk’ and children’s books together looked like madness.
And sure enough, Junk created a storm of protest – especially from those who didn’t bother to read it.
But for those who did, it raised up a different storm. Credible, honest, moving and sympathetic – not to drug taking, but to some of the reasons for it and to how