Stephen Fair - Hardcover

Tim Wynne-Jones is a writer in the best and broadest sense of the word. His work spans many different genres, and recognition for his achievements has been widespread.

The singer, songwriter, and accomplished author has written everything from picture books, children's and young adult fiction, and adult novels to radio dramas, short stories, and magazine articles. He has also composed lyrics for CDs, musicals, operas, TV shows, and his band, The Usual Suspects, of which he is the lead singer.

His most recent collection of short stories Lord of the Fries (DK Ink, 1999), received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was praised by School Library Journal for its "instantly likeable characters and intriguing original plots . . . Another excellent collection of short stories." Similarly, Wynne-Jones' latest young adult novel, Stephen Fair (DK Ink, 1998), received a starred review by School Library Journal and The Horn Book Magazine praised it for 'strong characterization, rich imagery, and well-crafted writing."

His novel The Book of Changes was also starred by School Library Journal and given a pointer by Kirkus Reviews. Wynne-Jones twice won the prestigious Governor General's Award for Children's Literature in Canada, most recently for The Maestro. He won the 1995 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction for his collection Some of the Kinder Planets, which was also selected as a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. These honors are but a few of the many bestowed upon Wynne-Jones for his literary accomplishments.

Born in Cheshire, England, Wynne-Jones' family emigrated to Canada when he was only four years old. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a B.A. in Fine Arts and received his M.A. in visual Arts from York University. He now resides in Perth, Ontario, with his wife and three children.

Wynne-Jones has toured extensively in Canada and has now started giving readings and presentations in the United States as well. He has served as a writing instructor at many colleges and universities in Canada, as an instructor in visual arts at the University of Waterloo and at York University, as a children's book columnist at Toronto Globe & Mail, and as the children's book editor at Red Deer College Press.

Recurrent nightmares and a strong feeling that his mother is hiding something haunt a teenager in this ethereal novel from Wynne-Jones (The Maestro, 1996, etc.). At 15, Stephen has disturbing dreams of a tree, a fire, and a baby cryingdreams he seems to have ``inherited'' from his older brother, Marcus, who left home four years ago. He can't keep them from his loving, hovering mother Brenda, but he can refuse the psychotherapy and other treatments that didn't work for Marcus. While his social life moves in a promising direction, toward friendship with beautiful, brilliant Virginia Skye, his inner turmoil, driven by lack of sleep and his lingering guilt over the departure of his father, Doug, gives rise to tensions at home. Wynne-Jones seldom flatly describes a character's feelings or state of mind; instead, he conveys them through quick, telling details and comments, or heavily symbolic background events. Stephen is surrounded by an unusual, distinctive supporting cast, and compelled by a series of artfully revealed hints that lead at last to truth: Doug and Brenda stole him away from his neglectful birth parents when Stephen was only a baby. Brenda's lies, Doug's departure, even the nightmareslinked to suppressed memoriesall arise from that act, but Stephen is strong enough to weather the storm, and wise enough to offer Brenda an olive branch at the end. An intense study in friendship and troubled family relations, in which the steadiest characters are the teenagers. (Fiction. 12-15) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.