Lionboy (Lionboy, 1)

Mysteriously missing parents, a boy who speaks Cat, an extraordinary floating circus, and a handsome hoodlum villain...get ready for one of the most spectacular adventure stories around! When young Charlie Ashanti returns home one day to find an empty house, he launches immediately into the journey of a lifetime. Sleazy Rafi, a teenage boy who can usually be found lurking around the playground, shows up, claiming that Charlie’s parents have gone on a trip. Our hero plays dumb and quickly escapes Rafi’s clutches only to find himself stowed away on the most remarkable ship the Thames River has ever kept afloat. Taking advantage of his astonishing ability to speak the language of cats, Charlie sets in motion a chain of communication from London to Paris via scruffy alley toms, fluffy lap kitties, and even a ferocious lion or two. Along the way, the clever boy manages to stay one step ahead of the rogues pursuing him, but unfortunately always one step behind his parents.!

Penned by a mother/daughter team who call themselves Zizou Corder, Lion Boy is the first in a trilogy that is bound to become a classic. Readers will shriek when they read the evil yet tantalizing words at the conclusion--"To Be Continued..."--and won’t rest until they get their hands on all three breathtaking, funny, well-written titles. (Ages 9 and older) --Emilie Coulter

ZIZOU CORDER is the pen name for a mother-daughter team of authors. Louisa Young grew up in London and studied history at Cambridge. She has written another trilogy for adults featuring a belly-dancing, motorcycle-riding single mom (Baby Love, Desiring Cairo, and Tree of Pearls), as well as a non-fiction book, The Book of the Heart.

Her ten-year-old daughter, Isabel Adomakoh Young contributed plot and character details, some of which mirror her own life―like Charlie, the hero of Lionboy Isabel is the child of an English woman and an African man and, also like Charlie, she suffers asthma.

The pen name Zizou Corder comes from Isabel's pet lizard, Zizu. They all live together in London.