Julia's latest FICTION book...
DOWNLOAD AN EXTRACT OF INSIDE Download teacher's resource for Inside here
Julia Jarman was born near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, and now lives in Riseley, Bedfordshire.
After reading English and Drama at the University of Manchester she was tempted by a career on the stage, but instead became a teacher on Merseyside.
She started full-time writing in 1983. Married with three children, she also lives with three cats, two hamsters and a dog.
Despite living in the country, Julia prefers bookworms to earthworms and her idea of a treat is a trip to the theatre. She had wanted to become a writer ever since reading Little Women, but finds it a lonely life, so she loves visiting schools, talking to children and reading her stories aloud - very dramatically!
She has had over 80 books for children published. GHOST WRITER won the Stockport Schools Book Award, Key Stage 3 and was Highly Commended for the 2002 NASEN Children’s Book Award.
Julia has been involved in a great project called Book to Screen. She worked with a film maker and a school using her novel The Ghost Writer . Together they created a film from a chapter in Julia's book in order to create a wider literacy - including visual literacy- by enabling children to compare the novel, film script and the film.
Teachers can download packs from this link www.juliajarman.com/pages/resources_for_teachers.htm
Packs include a variety of resources including a copy of the novel, the film, author;s plan, director's notes and much more
Julia's Links
Julia's Website
Time Travelling Cat Website
Interview
Teaching Guide
Julia's Books
Topher’s amazing cat, Ka, has time-travelled again; she has left him the clue:
CAppeLLis
Following her, Topher finds himself in Victorian London where disease is rife and the Thames is clogged with stinking sewage! Topher discovers a plot to kill Joseph Bazalgette, the man who is trying to save the city. Determined to foil it, Topher must first escape from an arch-criminal and his den of thieves.
This is the sixth adventure of the Time-Travelling Cat
0. Bears on the Stairs - Hardback
£10.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781849390057) 'There are bears on the stairs.
That’s why I don’t like going to bed. It’s the bears on the stairs.'
But are the bears real, or just a small boy's crafty tactic for delaying bedtime?
0. Inside - Paperback
£5.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781842709771) Aged seventeen, Lee is inside for a crime he
has committed. And he soon finds out that prison is not the holiday camp he's heard about. Warned to 'play by the rules' he has to decide whose rules - the screws' or the other cons'.
Life in a Young Offenders Institution is about survival. But the real struggle is inside Lee himself. Is he destined to be a 'career con' or can he choose to change his life?
The irrepressible Jessame is back, starring in six more great short stories. There's an outing to the
Cutty Sark in Greenwich; an African wedding, a new girl in school who needs cheering up and some scary moments at the swimming pool when her little brother falls in! But even staying at home is fun when you have a family as interesting as Jessame's - and a parrot as clever as Jacko.
0. Ghost Writer - Paperback
£4.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781842708279) Take a boy with a reading problem, a protective mother, and a village primary school set in its original 19th century buildings and there are all the ingredients for an accessible modern ghost story…
Frankie likes his school even though his bullying teacher thinks that ‘dyslexic’ is another name for lazy. But who is the ghost boy who writes 'GET HER' on the blackboard in the original classroom – and what is his connection with the cupboard at the back? What really happened in the influenza epidemic that swept the village 70 years before – and who died in it?
0. Hangman - Paperback
£4.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781842706831) Toby's heart sinks when he hears that Danny Lamb is coming to Lindley High School. Danny will expect Toby to be his friend, and Toby doesn't want that again. It was bad enough in the infants. Danny is different - that's the trouble - though it's hard to say exactly why. Being Danny's friend would destroy his street cred and put his friends off him. He doesn't want to harm Danny. He wouldn't bully him. Of course not. But on a school trip to Normandy, close to the D-Day beaches where men fought to defeat Fascism, a harmless game goes dreadfully wrong. `
Topher is planning a trip to London to visit his friend Ellie - but will it be safe, with all the terrorist threats? It worries him, and so do the extended absences of his beloved cat, Ka. She is going travelling again, and Topher doesn't want to lose her. And sure enough, in the middle of a big bomb alert, Topher is called away - to a Saxon village threatened by Norsemen. Now he must get the villagers to heed his warning and foil the aggressors led by the terrifying Viking, Ingwar the Boneless, infamous for his cruelty and devious tricks.
Ka, the time-travelling cat, has disappeared, leaving just one clue - a word on Topher's computer screen:
R*iche mou*nt
When Topher discovers that 'Richemount' meant 'Richmond' in Tudor times, he fears that Ka is in terrible danger. Cats were tortured in Tudor England, so Topher must try to find her before it is too late. In doing so, he meets Queen Elizabeth and Doctor Dee, the court magician and astronomer, who thinks Ka can help him find the elusive philosopher's stone.
An exciting and transporting fantasy, exploring both contemporary and ancient issues.
Topher Hope is on the move again. When his devoted cat, Ka, leaves a computer message saying she has gone to
CA;;LLevA
he follows her to a Romano-British settlement in AD 79. Ka is happy among the cat-adoring conquerors and their central heating! Topher, now a British boy, apprenticed to a Roman mosaic maker, has mixed loyalties. When the eagle, symbol of Roman power, disappears from the forum, threatening the fragile peace, Topher begins a desperate search. Can he find it and save his Roman friend, Marcus, from the Druid's murderous sickle? In this adventure Topher needs all the amazing powers of the time-travelling cat.
0. Ollie and The Bogle - Paperback
£4.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781842700396) It wasn’t just the staring face. It had hands too - and it had pointed at her with a long spiky finger... Upon first sight of the bogle, Ollie can’t quite believe what she has seen.But when its home, the eldertree, is cut down to make room for a compost heap, the wizened tree spirit puts a curse on her family. First a window pane shatters, then all her school books are shredded and Ollie gets blamed by her irascible and over-bearing father. If she wants to stop the evil creature working against her - and make it work for her instead - she must care for it and fulfil its three commands. Starting with humorous interludes, the story gradually ratchets up the scariness to become mesmerizingly frightening.
0. Ghost Writer - Hardback
£9.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781842701096) Take a boy with a reading problem, a protective mother, and a village primary school set in its original 19th century buildings and there all the ingredients for an accessible modern ghost story…
Frankie wants to stay in this school that he likes, and hide from his mother that there is a bullying teacher who thinks that ‘dyslexic’ is another name for lazy. Who is the ghost boy who writes: GET HER on the blackboard in the original classroom – and what is his connection with the cupboard at the back? What really happened in the influenza epidemic that swept the village 70 years before – and who died in it?
0. Peace Weavers - Hardback
£10.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781842702956) 15-year-old Hilde has been sent to live with her father on a USAF base in Suffolk, and as she is very close to her peacenik mother, she hates it. Even worse, she meets a boy called Friedman, who is far too interested in her. She joins an archaeological dig to escape. But then she steals a gold brooch from a grave, and starts having vivid dreams of Maethilde, a sixth century Saxon maiden whose skeleton she's uncovering. This shield-maiden and peace weaver of the barbarian Dark Ages can tell her how one person can stop a war, but Hilde must find a way to make it appropriate for modern times. How can she even promote peace when she antagonises everyone she meets? When Friedman's pilot father is shot down in Iraq, she must find a way to reconcile her earnest principles with the need to comfort a friend.
0. The Jessame Stories - Paperback
£4.99 by Julia Jarman
(Books/All genres)
(ISBN:9781842704547) Jessame doesn't mind being called Jessy, or Messy Jessy or Baddy Addy. Her full name is Jessame Aduke Olusanya. Sometimes she is messy and sometimes she is bad, but mostly she's just Jessame - a lively, imaginative, loving little girl to whom exciting things happen. Read about her adventures with the magical Grandpa Williams, Uncle Sharp who goes to sea and brings her back unusual presents from faraway places, and fun loving Aunt Gbee who comes to stay from Africa.
Topher Hope is distraught when Ka, his devoted cat disappears, leaving a word on his computer:
TENOCHT*I*TLaN
Wasn't that the home of the blood thirsty Aztecs? Then she must be in dreadful danger. But when Topher travels back to the time of the Aztecs, he finds trouble from another source. The Aztecs think Ka is one of their gods, but El Sol, a piratical Spanish conquistador, thinks she is a witch.
Can Topher save Ka from El Sol, rescue Pima, a girl the Aztecs want to Sacrifice,and escape from the wondrous, floating city of Tenochtitlan before it is destroyed?
Topher and his father are trying to get over the death of Topher's mother, an Egyptologist, when they take in a stray cat. This cat bears an uncanny resemblance to a cat ornament given to Topher by his mother and so they name it 'Ka', meaning 'double'. Topher becomes very attached to Ka and is puzzled by her mysterious absences. One day when he is playing a computer game with an Egyptian theme, Ka jumps on the keys and spells out the name Bubastis, which was the centre of cat worship in Ancient Egypt. Could Ka really be leading a double life and what is she trying to tell Topher?
Awards & Reviews
Out of Shadows
by Jason Wallace
'Excellent. [Out of Shadows is] the
Independent
Elmer's Special Day
by David McKee
Chris Brown, School Librarian
