When Charlie discovers that the child in the photograph is being held, hypnotised, against her will, he and his new friends with 'gifts' try to awaken her. Charlie quickly finds life at Bloor's pretty tough, with its strict rules and the malevolent head boy, Manfred, set against him. Although he tries to hide his new gift, Grandma Bone and her scary sisters soon find out, and send him to Bloor's Academy. Looking at a picture of a couple with a baby and a cat, he suddenly discovers he can hear their voices. Since his father died, Charlie Bone has lived with his mother and her mother, in the house of his other grandmother, Grandma Bone. The first instalment of the international best-selling fantasy series from Jenny Nimmo starring Charlie Bone.

An Academy for magic and special talents. Perfect for fans of Harry Potter, Eva Ibbotson, Cornelia Funke's Inkheart and Shane Hegarty's Darkmouth. (Mar.Classic magic and mystery from one of Britain's best-loved authors of fantasy adventure. Nimmo writes solidly, but her powers of invention (shown in, for example, her Griffin's Castle) cannot withstand the comparison she invites with J.K. evil, accompanied by new friends (an albino orphan, a drama diva and a musician) and confronted with mesmerizing foes (chiefly, the scion of the power-mad Bloor family). At the Hogwarts-like Bloor's, Charlie is thrust into an ongoing struggle of good vs. Before he enrolls, however, voices from photographs lead him into a mystery, pointing to a suspicious baby 'adoption' and involving clues about his own father's past while these are the most original elements here, they, too, are familiar. When Charlie suddenly begins to 'hear' subjects in photographs, the Yewbeams delightedly pack him off to Bloor's Academy for similarly gifted children.

Charlie Bone, a likable 'ordinary' boy of about 10, lives with his loving widowed mom and her mother, a salt-of-the-earth type, and his foreboding but wealthy paternal relations, who are 'endowed' (with psychic abilities) and who watch Charlie for signs of the Yewbeam family gift. The first in the projected Children of the Red King series, this paper-over-board British fantasy reads like ersatz Harry Potter.

Midnight for charlie bone