Giant Cold

Can a child defeat a frozen giant and bring summer back to Apple Island?

It’s the last night of a family’s holiday on a tropical island filled with black beaches, sweetfruit, and red-necked looby birds. Their final adventure is to climb the island’s tallest mountain before they leave in the morning. But when the child—who might be you—wakes up the next morning, the world has become a frozen wasteland and the father has been transformed into ice. Setting out in search of Giant Cold, a frozen monster no one has ever seen, you—now a tiny elf—meet two giants: white-beard, a scholar; and black-beard, a sailor. You’re forced to live inside a bottle and travel with black-beard—until the looby birds snatch up the bottle. Flying over forests, fields, and seas, you must rescue Apple Island from Giant Cold and his armies of wind, snow, and ice. With only the warmth of your own life—a tiny spark—you take on the powerful giant. Riding the wind up to the mountain peak, your tiny size will become your greatest asset as you make a surprising discovery about yourself.

Giant Cold is a strikingly original, big-hearted fantasy about love, family, and finding your way home.

Author Biography

Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.

The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association for two books running: The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest (1968) and The Old English Peepshow (1969). A collection of Dickinson’s poetry, The Weir, was published in 2007. His latest book, In the Palace of the Khans, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.