Midnight for Charlie Bone

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Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors, Billy Raven's guardian Christopher Crowquill sacrifices his life to save Paton's when Yorath Yewbeam tries to kill him, because he's dying anyway and Paton is the only one who can protect Billy. This makes him one of the very few non-evil characters to be Killed Off for Real. Psychometry: Gabriel Silk can experience the thoughts and feelings of people whose clothes he puts on. Charlie Bone thinks he is a normal 10 year old boy, when suddenly he can hear people in photographs and paintings. He world is turned upside down when he is transferred to Bloor's Academy, the best school in the town. There he makes friends and enemies with the other endowed children. Together, Charlie and the other well endowed children must fight against the evil ones in a number of battles. Jenny Nimmo is the acclaimed author of the Charlie Bone series. She has won several significant awards for her children's fiction, including the Nestle Smarties Book Prize and the Tir na n-Og Welsh Arts Council award for The Snow Spider. She lives in Wales with her husband, David.

Badass Teacher: Dr. Saltweather and Senor Alvaro, though barely mentioned at all in the final battle, make quite a team. Mind over Matter: Zelda Dobinski, Beth Strong, and Idith and Inez Branko have the power of telekinesis. They use this power against the heroes many times in the series. Charlie is decended form the Red King and his wife's youngest child, Amoret. Amoret was one of the five good children when the king left the castle. Amoret then fell in love with a giant called Otus Yewbeam. They had one son called Roland. Charlie is decended from a whole family of magical powers. They include, shapeshifters, a hypnotist, a clairvoyant, a clothes bewitcher and a power booster.

He was with his family at an Aladdinpantomime and got called up onstageand was interviewed by Cobra (Michael Willson) from the GladiatorsTV show. His mum, a personal trainer, knew Cobra, and young Charlie blurted out “My mum knows you!” Bad Powers, Bad People: This almost seems to be the case when it comes to the endowed. Those with more destructive powers tend to be on the side of the Bloors, while those with more useless-sounding powers tend to be good. This is averted by Tancred and Lysander, who are easily the strongest of all the kids at the Academy, and who are both very firmly on Charlie's team. Alliterative Name: Several. The most prominent would be Tancred Torsson, and later Bartholomew Bloor and Titania Tilpin. Then there's Alice Angel, Christopher Crowquill, Yorath Yewbeam and his daughter Yolanda, not to mention Bertram Babbington Bloor and his sister Beatrice. Eustacia Yewbeam might qualify too, depending on how you pronounce it.

For the most part, Charlie's friends developed acceptably as characters. I liked them all with perhaps the exception of Olivia - she was not a likable character in the least. It felt like she was meant to be but in the end, it fell flat. Emma's dad, Mostyn Tolly, traded her to the Bloors for a replica of the Toledo knight when she was a baby. He eventually tries to put this right, but is murdered before he can. Plot summaries [ edit ] Midnight for Charlie Bone [ edit ] The Time Twister [ edit ] Charlie Bone and the Time Twister in the US. It's supposed to be a school for geniuses. Okay, sure. There wasn't much to indicate that anyone there was actually very smart, but alright. But then, it's also a school for the "endowed" kids. Why? What purpose does it serve to have any of those kids there? There's no training for any of them, and there's no management of their powers at all. Well, other than their endowed only homework session. Not any special homework, of course. They just all have to sit at the same table, work on whatever they have, and not talk. It was entirely pointless. Carnegie Medal Award". 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University ( CCSU). Retrieved 18 October 2012.Chekhov's Gunman: Mr. Pilgrim, who in the fifth book is revealed to be Lyell Bone, Charlie's ten-years-estranged father. He's also the Red Knight.

What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Played with. Some of the endowed have powers that initially seem lame, but most of them turn out to be Chekhov's Guns or more powerful than you'd think.

Publication Order of The Children of the Red King Books

Billy Raven has been adopted by a mysterious and evil couple called the de Greys. The de Greys are endowed and have created a force field to trap him on the weekends to prevent him escaping. A distant relative of Billy's tries to adopt him, but ends up sacrificing himself to save Charlie's Uncle Paton. Manfred and Ezekiel brew trouble for all the endowed children. However, Ezekiel accidentally resurrects the Red King's wife Berenice, in the form of a white horse, when attempting to revive the King's evil son Borlath. Olivia Vertigo finds out she is endowed, with the ability to create illusions

This was obviously Ms Nimmo's attempt at a Harry Potter type story. It's not an exact copy or anything, but it's pretty difficult to miss that she was hugely influenced by Rowling's world. Unfortunately, this is nowhere near as good as Harry Potter. It's barely even coherent. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably because it was a forced attempt to cash in on the Harry Potter craze. Police Are Useless: Justified, since there's not much the police can do about magical crimes, especially when they've got their hands full with the mundane variety already. Though one does help Charlie's mother offscreen in the last book. Emma in Time Twister, when she, as a tollroc, saves Olivia from Zelda and Beth in the Academy grounds. Unfazed Everyman: Benjamin, Fidelio, and Olivia until she turns out to be endowed in the fourth book.Benevolent Boss: The Red King was certainly this, when he ruled the Red Castle centuries ago. He was kind and fair to all who were put under his care, and everyone respected and liked him. Final Battle: Finally happens in the eighth book, against Count Harken and his army. The good guys win. Kill It with Fire: What Borlath did to the Castle of Mirrors and its inhabitants. The only survivor was Amadis' youngest son, Owain. Julia Ingledew is the owner of Ingledew's Bookstore and is Emma Tolly's aunt. She has a relationship with Paton Yewbeam and marries him at the end of the last book. Spoiler Opening: The Dramatis Personae at the beginning of Charlie Bone and the Time Twister gives away the fact that Emma's endowment allows her to turn into a bird - information that otherwise isn't revealed until halfway through that book.