ALOUD: Tim Wynne-Jones

Vikki VanSickle is the author of Words That Start With B and the sequel, Love is a Four Letter Word. She is an active member of the children’s literature community, presenting at academic conferences, reviewing books, and managing her popular children’s lit blog, pipedreaming. Currently, she splits her time between working as Marketing and Publicity Coordinator for HarperCollins Canada and writing.

Tim Wynne-Jones is the author of more than 30 books, including novels, picture books, and three collections of short stories. He has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for children’s literature twice, the Canadian Library Association Children’s Book of the Year Award three times, and has been shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Wynne-Jones’s latest thriller, Blink & Caution, follows two street kids who form an unexpected bond while getting tangled in a fake kidnapping plot.

All Blink wanted was to steal breakfast for his empty belly, but instead he stumbled on a fake kidnapping and a cell phone dropped by an “abducted” CEO. Enter a girl named Caution. She’s on the run from her drug-dealer boyfriend and a nightmare in her past. When she spies Blink at the bus station, Caution can see he’s an easy mark. But there’s something about this naive, skinny street punk, whom she only wanted to rob, that tugs at her heart. Charged with suspense and intrigue, this taut novel trails two deeply compelling characters as they forge a blackmail scheme that is foolhardy at best, disastrous at worst, and form a fated partnership that will offer them each a rare chance for redemption.