Hero on a Bicycle Award-winning author by Shirley Hughes (author)

It is 1944 and Florence is occupied by Nazi German forces. The Italian resistance movement has not given up hope, though – and neither have Paolo and his sister, Constanza. Both are desperate to fight the occupation. But what can two siblings do against a whole army with only a bicycle to help them? Well, in extraordinary circumstances, people are capable of extraordinary things… A gripping and moving novel of war and courage by one of the world’s best-loved writers for children.

“Shirley Hughes is one of the all time greats.” Today

Product Details

Format

Paperback

ISBN

9781406336115

Publisher

Walker Books Ltd

Date published

October 11th, 2012

Lexile measure

880L

Accelerated Reader

AR book level: 6.0; Middle years; 6.0 points

Condition

New

Author/Illustrator

Shirley Hughes

Shirley was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. She then embarked on a career as a freelance illustrator in London, where she still lives today. She illustrated other writers’ work, including Noel Streatfeild, Alison Uttley, Ian Seraillier, Margaret Mahy and notably Dorothy Edwards’s My Naughty Little Sister series.

Shirley began to write and draw her own picture books when her children were young. Her first book, Lucy and Tom’s Day, was published in 1960, and she followed it with, among others, Dogger and the Alfie series.

Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella’s Big Chance in 2003. In 2007 Dogger was voted the public’s favourite Greenaway winner of all time. Shirley received an OBE in 1999 for services to Children’s Literature.