Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray

Ostrich Boys
by Keith Gray

Category 3: Older readers (12-16 years)

About the book

Kenny, Sim and Blake are about to embark on a remarkable journey. Stealing the urn that contains the ashes of their best friend Ross, they set out to travel 261 miles from Cleethorpes on the English east coast to the tiny hamlet of Ross in southern Scotland.

After a depressing and dispiriting funeral they feel that taking Ross to Ross will be a fitting memorial for a fifteen-year-old boy who changed all their lives through his friendship. Little do the realize just how much Ross can still affect life for them even though he’s dead.

Download the first chapter of Ostrich Boys here!

About the author

Keith was born and brought up in Grimsby, and as a child tried to avoid books.  He says, ‘I was an eager rebel and a particularly enthusiastic pain-in-the-backside, but a reluctant reader. Teachers urged, parents moaned, but all in vain. Books were a necessary chore, like washing my dad’s car.  I think everyone was surprised (even me) when I raced through Robert Westall’s The Machine Gunners from cover to cover – twice. This one book made me want to read more and more, eventually making me want to write my own books.’

His first book, Creepers, was published in 1996 when he was only 24. The novel was highly acclaimed and shortlisted for the Guardian Award. His short novel, The Runner, won the Smarties Silver Award and was given a special mention in the Japanese Sankei Prize for Children’s Publishing.  Warehouse was shortlisted for the Guardian Award, and won the Angus Book Award, as chosen by teenage readers themselves.  Happy was shortlisted for the Lancashire Book Award.   Malarkey was published in June 2003 to fantastic critical acclaim and went on to win the South Lanarkshire Book Award as well as being shortlisted for the Book Trust Teenage Prize, the Angus Book Award, Calderdale Book Award, Lancashire Book Award, Leicester Book Award and Wirral Paperback of the Year.  More recently, The Fearful was long listed for the Carnegie Medal.

Ostrich Boys was also shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Children’s Book of the Year Award and is currently on the Carnegie Medal shortlist.

Keith has now published several teen novels as well as his younger fiction titles. His aim is to write strong, accessible fiction for the sceptical and hard-to-please reader he once was.

Read more about Keith Gray on his LLF page.

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