Solomon is severely dyslexic. In this remarkable novel, told in the first person in a modified stream-of-consciousness style, we learn of the difficulties this causes him. He lives with his alcoholic father, his mum having left. Tests have been run on him to try to discover why he has such enormous learning difficulties, but no one has been able to assign reasons. School is hell. One friend is a support through the abuse he suffers from a manic teacher. His escape is a hiding place in a deserted kirkyard (this is Scotland). And it is in this kirkyard that the mysterious happenings begin. In the best tradition of ghost stories, strange powers pull Solomon and Amy, child of a professor who is studying the kirkyard, into a miasma of horror. An understanding teacher, Ms Talmur, who has begun to give Solomon the very basic help he so desperately needs, also becomes involved; it is Solomon's strength of character - strong in spite of years of being put down - that saves Amy from destruction. There will be no easy answers for Solomon, but whatever answers there are, he will have to find for himself. As Ms Talmur says, 'Please, Solomon. Don't ever be the same as anyone else.' Powerful and memorable. It won the Carnegie Medal in 1995.