Kite

By Melvin Burgess

1997

First Published

3.43

Average Rating

188

Number of Pages

5H44M

Audio Length

Taylor loves birds and collects eggs. He has the rare opportunity to enhance his collection when a pair of red kites nest nearby. The only problem is, the red kites are extremely rare - only twenty-five are left in the country. Taylor's father, a gamekeeper, is under orders from his boss, the landowner Reg Harris, to kill the kites, who are birds of prey and will go after Harris' grouse population. For Taylor, the temptation also to take the eggs from the kites' nest becomes insurmountable when Harris actually asks him to do the job, even though it is illegal. Pangs of terrible guilt follow, and although Taylor tells Harris he's gotten rid of the incriminating evidence, he secretly salvages and hatches one egg. But as soon as the bird is born, elaborate plans must be made to keep its existence a secret in order to save it from being shot during the approaching hunting season.

Avg Rating

3.43

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

17%

4 STARS

32%

3 STARS

34%

2 STARS

10%

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Melvin Burgess

Author · 29 books

Melvin Burgess is a British author of children's fiction. His first book, The Cry of the Wolf, was published in 1990. He gained a certain amount of notoriety in 1996 with the publication of Junk, which was published in the shadow of the film of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, and dealt with the trendy and controversial idea of heroin-addicted teenagers. Junk soon became, at least in Britain, one of the best-known children's books of the decade. Burgess again courted predictable controversy in 2003, with the publication of Doing It, which dealt with underage sex. America created a show based on the book, Life As We Know It. In his other books, such as Bloodtide and The Ghost Behind the Wall, Burgess has dealt with less realist and sometimes fantastic themes. In 2001 Burgess wrote the novelisation of the film Billy Elliot, based on Lee Hall's screenplay. Polyphony is typical for his most famous novels. http://us.macmillan.com/author/melvin...