The Burying Beetle

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About the Book: 

Meet Gussie. Twelve years old and settling into her new ramshackle home on a cliff top above St Ives, she has an irrepressible zest for life. She also has a life-threatening heart condition. But it's not in her nature to give up. Perhaps because she knows her time might be short, she values every passing moment, experiencing each day with humour and extraordinary courage.

Spirited and imaginative, Gussie has a passionate interest in everything around her and her vivid stream of thoughts and observations will draw you into a renewed sense of wonder.

Gussie's story of inspiration and hope is both heartwarming and heartrending. Once you've met her, you'll not forget her. And you'll never take life for granted again.

Reviews: 

Selected by Publishing News as Title of the Month for May 2005

This is an atmospheric and beguiling book, written with a precision which guards it from sentimentality. HELEN DUNMORE

Acutely observed, tender, funny and very moving. MICHAEL FOREMAN

Gussie fairly fizzles with vitality, radiating fun and enjoyment into everything that comes her way. Her life may be predestined to be short but not short on wonder, glee, the love of things as they really are ... I hope Gussie's story sells a trillion, zillion copies. It deserves to.  MICHAEL BAYLEY

I started reading it this morning before breakfast and ignored hunger pangs to finish it in great sadness. It's quite beautifully done. SUE BAKER, PUBLISHING NEWS

About the Author:

ANN KELLEY is a photographer and prize-winning poet who once nearly played cricket for Cornwall. She has previously published a collection of poetry and photographs, a book of photos of St Ives families and an audio book of cat stories. She lives with her husband and cats on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall where they have survived a flood, a landslip, a lightning strike and the roof blowing off.