Most Popular Books by Tim Bowler

Grandpa is dying. He can barely move his hands any more but, stubborn as ever, refuses to stay in hospital. He''s determined to finish his last painting, ''River Boy'', before he goes. At first Jess can''t understand his refusal to let go, but then she too becomes involved in the mysterious painting. And when she meets the river boy himself, she finds she is suddenly caught up in a challenge of her own that she must complete - before it''s too late . . .

Fifteen-year-old Kit and his parents must ground their sinking sailboat on a rocky island inhabited by a primitive sect who believe the stranded family has been sent by the devil.

Fin is devastated by guilt when his sister, Ella, is kidnapped. She is snatched away from the house in the middle of a storm. As the kidnappers make their demands, Fin''s guilt is replaced by a fierce determination to find his sister by whatever means he can, and bring the criminals to justice. But as the drama unfolds, a complex web of family secrets is revealed, which will change everything, forever.

Zinny''s life is falling apart. Shadowy figures are following him. His parents are keeping secrets but he can''t figure out why. Then his mum ends up in hospital, his dad disappears, and Zinny has to do whatever he can to save his family. Even if it means helping the very men he''s been running from . . . As the clock ticks, Zinny knows it''s only a matter of time before someone ends up dead - and it could be him.

Somehow the boat was still afloat - another wave had lifted it clear of the first rock and was driving it further inshore. It bumped against the base of Crab Rock and skewed around, then tipped momentarily to starboard . . . and as it did so, she saw a figure crouching in the bottom. Hetty''s always been a bit of a loner, preferring to keep to the outer edges of the close-knit island community. But when a strange woman is washed up on the shore, Hetty finds herself under increasing scrutiny from the islanders. There''s a connection between Hetty and the woman that makes people suspicious, so when death comes to the community the woman is branded a bad omen and Hetty has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. As she heads out to sea, a storm is breaking and the whispers that she''s heard before are louder than ever. Voices from the very depths of the sea . . . and they''re calling her name.

Luke is in trouble. Skin and the gang have a job for him. They want him to break into Mrs Little''s house and steal the jewellery box. They want him to prove that he''s got what it takes. That he''s part of the gang. But Luke finds more than just a jewellery box in the house. He finds something so unexpected it will change his life forever . . . This is a wonderful, rich novel, written with lyricism, drama and power. Tackling issues of loss, love, and healing, and filled with the sense of a universe bursting with music, it is unputdownable from the first page to the last.

"Shadows" is a gritty, uncompromising book and also, unusually, a boy''s love story. It focuses on Jamie, a fifteen-year-old squash prodigy and his relationship with his overbearing father, who is determined that his son will achieve the success he himself never enjoyed and drives the boy to apoint almost beyond endurance. Then Jamie finds a girl hiding in his shed, and in helping her to escape from the danger that is pursuing her, he is at last able to deal with his own problems. He realises that he can''t run away for ever. He has to come out of the shadows and face up to his father,whatever the cost. * Winner of the Angus Book Prize and the Lancashire Children''s Book Award. * Major prize-winning author: Tim Bowler won the Carnegie Medal with "River Boy". * Strong themes of overcoming fears, helping others, and standing up for what you believe. * New cover treatment to match Tim Bowler''s wonderful new novel, "Storm Catchers". * Author was born and brought up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and now lives in Totnes, Devon

Meet Blade. But be careful. You might not like what you see. He''s dangerous. He needs to be. Because there are people who want him dead. It''s dog eat dog in his world. Win or die. He thought he was safe. But now they''ve found out where he is. And they''re coming. Part one of the unmissable Blade series.

Midget is fifteen and three foot tall. Trapped in a body he hates, Midget is tortured by his cruel older brother Seb. His father is kind but unaware of Seb''s treatment of Midget.But Midget can sail and his dream is to sail his own boat. Everyone says it''ll take a miracle, but that''s when Midget starts to realise that he has a special power. He can make things happen. But in the process people get hurt - including his brother Seb. Through this crisis, the brothers find anew understanding.

Design, develop, and deploy feature-rich, high-performance PHP web applications using the Symfony framework Key Features Create powerful web applications by leveraging the power of this Model-View-Controller-based framework Covers all the new features of version 1.3 ñ many exciting plug-ins for you Learn by doing without getting into too much theoretical detail ñ create a "real-life" milkshake store application Includes best practices to shorten your development time and improve performance Book DescriptionWith its flexible architecture, the Symfony framework allows you to build modern web applications and web services easily and rapidly. The MVC components separate the logic from the user interface and therefore make developing, changing, and testing your applications much faster. Using Symfony you can minimize repetitive coding tasks, optimize performance, and easily integrate with other libraries and frameworks. Although this framework contains with many powerful features, most developers do not exploit Symfony to its full potential. This book makes it easy to get started and produce a powerful and professional-looking web site utilizing the many features of Symfony. Taking you through a real-life application, it covers all major Symfony framework features without pushing you into too much theoretical detail, as well as throwing some light on the best practices for rapid application development. This book takes you through detailed examples as well as covering the foundations that you will need to get the most out of the Symfony framework. You will learn to shorten the development time of your complex applications and maintain them with ease. You will create several useful plug-ins and add them to your application and automate common tasks. The book also covers best practices and discussions on security and optimization. You will learn to utilize all major features of this framework by implementing them in your application. By the end, you should have a good understanding of the development features of Symfony (for Propel as well as Doctrine editions), and be able to deploy a high-performance web site quite easily.What you will learn Set up the foundations for a database-driven web site using Symfony Create a list of products by accessing data from a database, paginate the menu, and then customize its look Create formsófrom simple contact forms to complex onesówith user-defined fields using sfFormExtraPlugin Send email notifications to the customers using PHP SwiftMailer library Create quick development task plug-ins to save your development time and package them into your application Configure and customize Symfony s admin generator to create a nice looking back-office Secure your backend application with the Symfony authentication mechanism, leveraging the power of the sfGuardPlug-in security and authentication plug-in Create an advanced admin panel with JavaScript that allows image files to be uploaded and thumbnails to be automatically generated Enhance your search mechanism by using the JQueryAutoComplete Widget to add an auto-complete feature to it Allow your users to choose their preferred language for display by introducing internationalization and localization to your application Integrate a component from another framework into your application with minimum effort Optimize the response time of your site by using compression and caching Who this book is for This book is for PHP web developers who want to get started with Symfony 1.3. If you are already using Symfony 1.0 or are new to Symfony, you will learn how to use it in the best way to produce better applications faster.Basic knowledge of Object Oriented design and ORM will be quite helpful.

While struggling to cope with the death of his father, a gifted musician, fourteen-year-old Luke must deal with a dangerous bully, a lonely old woman, a blind young girl, his mother''s romantic involvement, and his own musical talent.

Benjamin has terrible nightmares. Ever since taking the stone from Dragon''s Rock he feels the beast chasing him. Sleep has become a place of fear, where the dragon hunts him. Benjamin returns to Dragon''s Rock in the hope that he can put things right and so get rid of the visions. Once there, his nightmares become even more dangerous. And Benjamin realizes that he''s no longer the only person at risk ...

Will lies in a deserted lane. All he knows is that he''s had an accident and that his life is slipping away. Against all the odds he survives - but with an almost total loss of memory. He does not even know himself. And that is not all. At night he is tormented by visions, in the daytime by hostile strangers. Why does he have so many enemies? And who is the strange child who seems to have a story to tell him? Something has happened in this town, something terrifying. Will can sense it but he can''t work out what it was. Perhaps the old Will knew. But that was before the accident. The new Will must search for the answers again - and this is a dangerous task. For the town has a secret and there are those who will do everything in their power to preserve it. Even kill.

Dusty’s life has fallen apart. Her mother left after Dusty’s brother mysteriously disappeared, and her father is devastated. Then Dusty gets a seemingly random phone call: a boy’s voice saying, “I’m dying.” At first Dusty doesn’t care, but then the boy says things that only Dusty knows. Things that lead her to believe he knows where her brother is. And after a few more calls, Dusty wants to find this boy, but he doesn’t want to be found. He claims he is too dangerous, and there are many people who agree. Can Dusty avoid getting hurt and still protect this mysterious boy who may not be of this world? Watch a Video

在最悲傷的一天，她卻獲得了最美好的相遇…… 讀完這本書，你就不再是同一個人了。──卡內基文學大獎評審團 卡內基文學大獎全票通過，打敗《哈利波特》的經典著作 ｛連續17年蟬聯暢銷榜｝｛韓國口碑熱賣破120刷｝｛超越時代最佳成長小說｝ 觸動全球 21 國讀者靈魂的最佳成長小說 打敗《哈利波特》，獲得卡內基文學大獎的經典傑作 韓國銷售破40萬冊，再刷破120次 各國讀書會大推，特附〈小說共讀話題〉 當我們克服痛苦，也就是經歷了成長， 好似一條永不停歇的河流，撞擊、激盪、奔流、跳躍， 一路搖晃曲折，但堅定往大海奔去── 擅於游泳的女孩潔西，和父母陪伴心臟病危的爺爺返回故鄉。爺爺固執嚴厲，不顧醫生與家人反對，拖著病體也要完成一幅取名「小河男孩」的畫。潔西實在不懂，爺爺為何老愛這樣耍任性。 後來，她在河邊巧遇了小河男孩，一切發展就如奇幻夢境一般。他們交談、冒險、探索，甚至約好一起完成爺爺的心願，並且前往瀑布頂端，進行終極挑戰。 可是，當爺爺再度緊急送醫，眾人既要煩惱爺爺的病況，還得憂心潔西安危的時刻，潔西卻像是得了天啟，追隨男孩，一路往海口長游而去── 然而， 爺爺怎會忽然清楚知道生命將如何安頓？ 潔西又是怎麼明白，什麼才是對爺爺最終且最好的安排？ 人生又怎麼可能會在最悲傷的日子裡，能學到勇敢微笑呢？ 小河男孩的真相，竟如此不可思議，如此美麗。 《小河男孩》獲獎榮譽 ★1997年英國卡內基文學大獎 ★1999年英國「安格斯書獎」 作者曾獲獎項 ★紐約圖書館文學獎 ★比利時文學獎 ★蘇格蘭青年文學獎 ★紅橋圖書獎 ★薩默塞特圖書獎 ★高地圖書獎 ～◆～讀者熱淚好評～◆～ ※是我這輩子流過最多淚水的書。 ※我學生時代讀一遍，成年後讀一遍，為人父母後又讀了一遍。這本書將伴我一生。 ※這是一個沒有贅詞、純淨晶瑩的故事。 ※我會向所有經歷過生離死別的人推薦這本書……書中的一景一物和人物的所思所感，無不令我越讀越著迷。 ※《小河男孩》刻劃跨世代的愛……翻閱書頁時，內心深處也會湧起一股似水柔情。 ～◆～各國好評如潮～◆～ ※在這個充斥著懶人包與短影片的世界，大眾的思考日益碎片化、淺碟化，情緒上也很容易陷入無力與憤怒。《小河男孩》蘊藏的含義，能帶領讀者以深刻、長遠的方式看待人生，我們需要的就是這種作品。──安光福Ahn Kwang-bok（首爾中洞高中哲學教師） ※以哲學深度和情感共鳴為基礎，引領讀者反思生命，《小河男孩》不僅是青少年讀物，更是對成年人別具意義的成長小說。──金旼貞Kim Min-jung（慶尚南道雄尚女中校長） ※這部作品猶如一顆小小的火種，為早已習慣快速短影音的孩子，重燃閱讀長篇小說的樂趣。──李恩京Lee Eun-kyung（親職教育專家） ※精采刺激、虛實交錯⋯⋯情節緊湊又富有想像力，適合在漫漫長夜捧讀。——《牛津時報》 ※河流是生與死的自然隱喻。在這個簡單、動人的故事中，提姆．鮑勒將河流的意象發揮得淋漓盡致。——蘇珊・庫柏（英國奇幻小說家） ※卡內基文學大獎實至名歸的得主——餘韻悠長、詩意盎然、情感細膩。——《星期日郵報》 ※本書實為令人驚艷之作——力透紙背，帶有魔幻色彩，讀完難以忘懷。這是一本還很年輕的經典，現在只是它永垂不朽的頭幾年。——《回聲晚報》

Luke está en apuros: Skin, el matón del pueblo, le ha pedido que cometa un robo en una casa para demostrar que es digno de pertenecer a la pandilla. Sin embargo, este es solo uno de sus problemas, ya que, desde la muerte de su padre, Luke está perdido. En la casa se encontrará algo inesperado que le ayudará a aceptarse tal y como es.