what people have said about
the burying beetle

"Many thanks for sending The Burying Beetle, I started reading it this morning before breakfast and ignored hunger pangs to finish it in great sadness. It's quite beautifully done."
SUE BAKER, PUBLISHING NEWS

"Acutely observed, tender, funny and very moving."
MICHAEL FOREMAN

"Gussie fairly fizzles with vitality, radiating fun and enjoyment into everything that comes her way. Her life may be predestined to be short but not short on wonder, glee, the love of things as they really are . . . there'll be more hope in the world once this book is published and read.
It is rare to find such tragic circumstances written about without an ounce of self-pity. Rarer still to have the story of a circumscribed existence escaping its confines by sheer force of personality, zest for life.
I hope Gussie's story sells a trillion, zillion copies. It deserves to."
MICHAEL BAYLEY

"Her precise evocation of the natural world alternates with funny observations, musings about life and death, reminiscences of her grandparents, and regrets for the happier time when her parents were together. While it is sad, one feels that with her positive attitude she may well survive."
JENNIFER TAYLOR, THE BOOKSELLER, 18 MARCH 2005

"The Burying Beetle has a rare authenticity. Twelve-year-old Gussie, seriously ill and holed up in a shack on a cliff in Cornwall with her mother, is a most surprising, captivating character. Her routine of hospitals and operations has cut her off from contemporaries: this might have made Gussie a frustrated spectator, but instead she trains herself as sleuth and naturalist. Through her eyes we see a passing school of dolphins, a gull funeral, the ageing skin on her mother's neck, a badger with a shoe fetish and her own scared, neglectful father. Gussie's life might end next week, and she knows it. The undercurrents are powerful, but wherever they're taking Gussie, she's determined to remain herself, keep her eyes open and tell the truth as she sees it.
This is an atmospheric, moving and beguiling book, written with a precision which guards it from sentimentality."
HELEN DUNMORE

Comments of Year 9 and 10 (13, 14 years) school children at St Ives School, Cornwall

(Ann read each lunchtime for about 45 minutes for 7 days to finish the book. They drew and ate their lunch as they listened. More children arrived each day.)

"I thought it was a really good book. I think it was a good idea to write through a child. Everything in the book sounds so real. You can imagine that you are actually in the book. I found it so good. It's quite hard to explain because it was so brilliant. I will definitely go out and buy it. As Ann was reading it it felt so real."
NATALIE

"A cross between 'a curious incident' and 'deanie' -
One of those rare books that delves into the unfathomable depths of your mind and makes you think. The sophisticated character of Gussie will enchant you and awe you with her wisdom."
SARAH JACKSON

"I reckon this book was really good. I will definitely go and buy it. It's so hard to express how much I liked it.
I would buy this book because even though it's meant for adults it's such a good book for older children"
NATALIE BURGESS

"It is the August of 1999 and Gussie and her Mum are staying in the middle of nowhere I St Ives. Trapped by her health, her Mum, and death, Gussie struggles to learn, live and make the most out of her surroundings. Finding peace in the neighbouring wildlife, Gussie tells us her thoughts. This is her story.
This is a book for all ages, touching us all, affecting us. Read this and visit the cliff-top house. See the birds she sees, hear the waves she hears. This is a highly descriptive, gripping and enticing story. Ann Kelley has succeeded in writing a brilliant book."
HANNAH

"This book is so good I think there will be a lot of people who will want to buy the book"
KATIE

"I think the book is very good. It is interesting, some times funny but there are a lot of swear words."
AARON

"Writing through a child gives all ages an insight into a child's life."
KIMBERLEY JAMES

Buy The Burying Beetle online now from the secure Luath Press website: www.luath.co.uk/acatalog/The_Burying_Beetle.html

The Burying Beetle by Ann Kelley will be available from May 2005, priced £9.99, from all good bookshops or online from www.luath.co.uk.

ISBN: 1 84282 099 0 PBK