Dead Boy

Author: Gale, Laurel

Brand: Yearling

Color: Black

Edition: Reprint

Features:

• YEARLING

Binding: paperback

Format: Import

Number Of Pages: 256

Release Date: 20-09-2016

Part Number: part_0553510118

Details: Product Description
Fans of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book will embrace this darkly funny novel!Crow isn't like the other kids. He stinks. He’s got maggots. His body parts fall off at inopportune moments. (His mom always sews them back on, though.) And he hasn’t been able to sleep in years. Not since waking up from death.  But worse than the maggots is how lonely Crow feels. When Melody Plympton moves in next door, Crow can’t resist the chance to finally make a friend. With Melody around he may even have a shot at getting his life back from the mysterious wish-granting creature living in the park. But first there are tests to pass. And it will mean risking the only friend he’s had in years. Debut author Laurel Gale’s story about friendship fulfilled may be the most moving—and most macabre—yet. Praise for Dead Boy“A stinky, creepy tale for anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider.” —Kirkus Reviews “Gale takes readers on a dark and surprisingly funny journey. . . . A great recommendation to middle grade fans of dark humor.” —School Library Journal
About the Author
Dead Boy is Laurel Gale’s first novel. Gale says, “I wondered what it would be like for a ‘live’ dead boy to try to make friends. I had no idea what would happen next, so I kept writing to find out.” Like Crow, Gale resides in the Nevada desert. She lives with her husband and a band of furry monsters that might actually be ferrets. You can visit Laurel online at laurelgale.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

Being dead stank. Cuts didn’t heal. Hair fell out and didn’t grow back. Maggots burrowed in the stomach, which couldn’t have digested anything anyway. And then there was the actual stink. The smell. The stench of rotting flesh. No matter how much spray-on deodorant Crow Darlingson used, he couldn’t quite mask it.

Death was lonely, too. While other boys his age played ball in the street, he watched from his window. When they went off to school in the morning, he stayed home. But he still had to study and take tests; his mother saw to that.

“Can’t we go outside?” he asked. “We can go into the backyard where nobody can see us.”

Mrs. Darlingson, a slender woman with perfect makeup and hair, shook her head firmly. “Too warm. Are you ready for your geography test?”

Anything much above forty degrees was too warm. Heat made the smell worse. Every once in a while, the Darlingsons’ overworked air conditioner would break, and for days Crow’s stink would spread throughout the block.

Maybe that was why the previous neighbors had moved, although they hadn’t said anything. But leave they did, in quite a hurry, and now another family was taking their place. Crow could see the moving truck from his window. He could see the new family, too--a man, a girl, and a dog. The girl appeared to be around eleven, same as Crow, with short brown hair, plaid leggings, and a very bright tie-dyed T-shirt.

She looked up at the window, her head cocked to one side, and waved.

Crow waved back, shocked. Nobody had waved to him in years.

Mrs. Darlingson grabbed his hand, gently so it wouldn’t fall off, and guided him away from the window. “Time for your geography test.”



He aced his test, as always, even though it was a particularly hard one that involved drawing and labeling a map of Africa from memory. He made sure to spell each country, from Algeria to Zimbabwe, correctly.

School had never presented much of a challenge for him. He’d helped his class win the academic bowl in the fourth grade, right before his death. He’d won the grade-level spelling bee that year, too, and would have gone on to compete against the fifth graders if he’d managed to stay alive for it.

Getting good grades was even easier without distractions like friends. Or food. Or fun. So of course he aced everything his mother placed in front of him.

Mrs. Darlingson put the test, marked with a bright red A+, on the refrigerator, where it joined the oth

EAN: 9780553510119

Package Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches

Languages: English