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Four of the Outcasts don't really participate in class, and all five could care less about a group activity, so the fact that all of them actually go on the fieldtrip is something of a miracle.
And when reality splits, and they end up in another dimension, you can imagine how badly they'll all wish they'd stayed home. Five outcasts fall out of reality. How many will make it back to the world as they know it?
"The hand of the author can be felt at every turn, with thinly veiled messages about the importance of teamwork and not prejudging others. " - Publishers Weekly
"Responsibility is a key theme throughout, as the adult characters pontificate regularly in a heavy-handed manner. Lacking a well-formed plot, this book leaves readers feeling like outcasts themselves." - School Library Journal
This uneven but enjoyable magical tale brings its outcast characters together: a magical version of The Breakfast Club in the English countryside.
This information about The Outcasts was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
L. S. Matthews is the pen name of Laura Dron, a British children's author of several critically acclaimed novels.
Her first novel, Fish (2003), won the Fidler Award and was also highly commended for the Branford Boase Award and nominated for a Carnegie Medal. Her other novels are The Outcasts (2004), A Dog For Life (2006), Lexi (2007) and After the Flood (2008). Matthews has written two short SEN titles, Deadly Night and The Game, which were both published in 2006.
L. S. Matthews writes full-time in England, where she lives with her husband and two children.
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