Finalist for the 2021 Bancarellino Prize

Publisher: Magazzini Salani

 

Jump aboard a flying train. Taste a Fizzblizzard. Ride the winds on a Breezeskimmer. Discover your courage with a Soulscope. Learn to control the Volit bugs with your will and use them in battle.... Welcome to Avium!

​

You only have to look at Ollie and Rose to know they’re siblings. And anyone who knows them might add that they share a taste for adventure, a talent for getting themselves into trouble – and almost too much curiosity. No one in the Institute knows where these two orphans came from, nor who it was that abandoned them. At the bottom of the stairs there’s a door. Ollie’s got the key in his pocket. Rose is hiding in the corridor, checking that all is quiet. The key fits in the lock and turns. On a top shelf they find a wooden box, carved with the initials O and R, containing a pair of pendants. When these are joined together, a train falls out of the sky and whisks Ollie and Rose away on the biggest adventure of their life. Ploughing through the clouds, they reach an island floating in the air: a fantastic world, but one that is full of dangers: men winged like birds are out to catch them. With help from the Phoenix rebels, Ollie and Rose manage to escape the Gendarmes. But here on Avium, they are the Featherless and therefore illegal immigrants. They need to get back home, but Avium is part of their destiny: their extraordinary journey, filled with wonders and unexpected dangers, will show them why....