The Wren-Boys

· Pan Macmillan
eBook
64
Pages
Eligible
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About this eBook

It is a cold day in Ireland, the 26th of December; frost lies thick on the blackthorn. A man walks the just-waking village, banging on every door, summoning the boys. Today is St. Stephen's Day, when legend has it that the Saint was betrayed by a wren's call, and the boys are off to the forest where they hope to find the traitorous bird and capture it by nightfall. But what will they do if their prey escapes them?

Inspired by the many myths of the wren and the Irish tradition of hunting it, Carol Ann Duffy's beautiful new Christmas poem takes us on a chase through a snowy, rural landscape and ends with a merry celebration. With gorgeous full-colour illustrations by Dermot Flynn throughout, The Wren-Boys will make a perfect stocking-filler this festive season.

About the author

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has written for both children and adults, and her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, the PEN Pinter Prize, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. Her other beautifully illustrated Christmas poems include Another Night Before Christmas, Mrs Scrooge, Wenceslas, Bethlehem, Dorothy Wordsworth's Christmas Birthday and The Christmas Truce. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009. Her collections include The World's Wife, Love Poems, Rapture and The Bees which won the Costa Poetry Award.

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