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The Spook's Sacrifice
''Spook's'', published as ''The Last Apprentice'' in the United States, is a children's dark fantasy series by English author Joseph Delaney. It is published by imprints of Penguin Random House in the United Kingdom and HarperCollins in the United States. The series has been published in 30 countries, with sales exceeding 4.5 million copies. It started in 2004 with '' The Spook's Apprentice'', which has been adapted into a play script, a feature film titled '' Seventh Son'', and a French graphic novel. The main series consists of 20 books, with three arcs. ''The Wardstone Chronicles'', follows Thomas "Tom" Ward's journey as he apprentices under John Gregory, the spook of the County, situated in a fictionalized Lancashire. Through his mentorship, Tom masters the skills to confront supernatural threats. However, as the narrative unfolds, Tom finds himself confronting an even greater peril: the Fiend. ''The Starblade Chronicles'', extends the adventures of Tom Ward, now a Spook, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Spook's Apprentice
''The Spook's Apprentice'', published as ''The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch'' in the United States, is a 2004 children's dark fantasy novel by Joseph Delaney. It was published by The Bodley Head and Red Fox in the United Kingdom, and Greenwillow Books in the United States. It is the first story in '' The Wardstone Chronicles'' arc of the ''Spook's'' series. The book has sold over 3 million copies and was the winner of the Sefton Book Award, Hampshire Book Award and Prix Plaisirs de Lire. It has been adapted into various mediums, including a play script, feature film titled '' Seventh Son'', and a French graphic novel. The plot centres on a 12-year-old farm boy named Thomas "Tom" Ward who lives in the countryside of the County, loosely based on the English county of Lancashire. As Tom is the seventh son of a seventh son, he is able to see things others cannot, such as ghosts, boggarts, ghasts, and other supernatural creatures. Plot Thomas "Tom" Ward has lived his who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supernatural
Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages and did not exist in the ancient world. The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to non-physical entity, non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods and ghost, spirits. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including Magic (supernatural), magic, telekinesis, levitation (paranormal), levitation, precognition and extrasensory perception. The supernatural is hypernymic to religion. Religions are standardized supernaturalist worldviews, or at least m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Book Day (UK And Ireland)
World Book Day () is a charity event held annually in the United Kingdom and Ireland on the first Thursday in March. On World Book Day, every child in full-time education in the UK and Ireland is provided with a voucher to be spent on books; the event was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in 1998. The event is the local manifestation of the original, global World Book Day organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing, and copyright, and widely observed on 23 April. Organizers in the UK moved the observance to avoid clashes with Easter school holidays and with Saint George's Day. Book publishers in Ireland decided to bring World Book Day to Ireland a number of years later. Conversely, the World Book Night event organized by independent charity The Reading Agency is held on 23 April. History The United Kingdom's own version of World Book Day began in 1998, launched by Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Globe Theatre in London. Several million schoolchildren in the UK w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Walden
Mark Walden (born 1972) is the author of the H.I.V.E. series of novels. He was a senior producer in charge of developing PlayStation games for Sony before taking up writing full-time. Personal life Walden spent seven years at Bablake School, an independent co-educational day school in Coventry, before studying for a BA in English Literature and an MA in Twentieth Century Literature, Film and Television at Newcastle University. Walden has a wife, Sarah, a daughter, Megan, and a cat called Marge. He spent ten years as a video games designer and producer before leaving the games industry to write and become a full-time father. H.I.V.E., published in September 2006, was Walden's debut novel. It was selected as a winner in Richard and Judy's 'Best Kids' Books Ever' competition and Paramount Pictures has optioned the film rights. Walden has since produced seven more books in the series, with another, Aftershock, released in August 2011 and the semi-sequel Deadlock, released in June 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chipping, Lancashire
Chipping is a village and civil parish in the borough of Ribble Valley, Lancashire, England, within the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its grid reference is SD6243, and the nearest substantial settlement is Longridge, nearly to the south. In the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 1,046, falling slightly to 1,043 at the 2011 census. The village has won several best-kept village competitions over the years. The village also won the village section of the Royal Horticultural Society Britain in Bloom competition in 2009, picking up RHS Tourism and Gold achievement awards in the process. History The village is known to be at least 1,000 years old and is mentioned in Domesday. It lies on the south-western edge of the ancient Forest of Bowland abutting the civil parish of Bowland-with-Leagram. Leagram Park, the site of one of the medieval deer parks of the Forest, is a short drive from the village. Despite this, Chipping was not a part of the ancie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackpool
Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Irish Sea coast of the Fylde peninsula, approximately north of Liverpool and west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is the main settlement in the Borough of Blackpool, borough of the same name. Blackpool was originally a small hamlet; it began to grow in the mid-eighteenth century, when sea bathing for health purposes became fashionable. Blackpool's beach was suitable for this activity, and by 1781 several hotels had been built. The opening of a railway station in 1846 allowed more visitors to reach the resort, which continued to grow for the remainder of the nineteenth century. In 1876, the town became a borough. Blackpool's development was closely tied to the Lancashire cotton mill, cotton-mill practice of annual factory maintenance shutdowns, known as wakes weeks, when many workers chose to visit the seaside. The town saw large growth during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. By 1951 its popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lancaster, Lancashire
Lancaster (, ) is a city in Lancashire, England, and the main cultural hub, economic and commercial centre of City of Lancaster district. The city is on the River Lune, directly inland from Morecambe Bay. Lancaster is the county town, although Lancashire County Council has been based at County Hall, Preston, County Hall in Preston, Lancashire, Preston since its formation in 1889. The city's long history is marked by Lancaster Roman Fort, Lancaster Castle, Lancaster Priory, Lancaster Priory Church, Lancaster Cathedral and the Ashton Memorial. It is the seat of Lancaster University and has a campus of the University of Cumbria. It had a population of 52,234 in the 2011 census, compared to the district, which had a population of 138,375. The House of Lancaster was a branch of the List of English monarchs, English royal family. The Duchy of Lancaster still holds large estates on behalf of Charles III, who is the Duke of Lancaster. The Port of Lancaster and the 18th-century Lancas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preston, Lancashire
Preston () is a city on the north bank of the River Ribble in Lancashire, England. The city is the administrative centre of the county of Lancashire and the wider City of Preston, Lancashire, City of Preston local government district. Preston and its surrounding district obtained City status in the United Kingdom, city status in 2002, becoming England's 50th city in the 50th year of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II's reign. Preston had a population of 147,800 at the 2021 census, the City of Preston district 156,411 in 2023 and the Preston Built-up Area 313,322. The Preston Travel To Work Area, in 2011, had a population of 420,661, compared with 354,000 in the previous census. The south bank of the Ribble is part of the Preston urban area, although it forms the South Ribble borough that is administratively separate. Preston and its surrounding area have provided evidence of ancient Roman Britain, Roman activity, largely in the form of a Roman road that led ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Of England
Northern England, or the North of England, refers to the northern part of England and mainly corresponds to the historic counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire. Officially, it is a grouping of three statistical regions: the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber, which had a combined population of 15.5 million at the 2021 census, an area of and 17 cities. Northern England is culturally and economically distinct from both the Midlands and Southern England. The area's northern boundary is the border with Scotland, its western the Irish Sea and a short border with Wales, and its eastern the North Sea. Its southern border is often debated, and there has been controversy in defining what geographies or cultures precisely constitute the 'North of England' — if, indeed, it exists as a coherent entity at all. The region corresponds to the borders of the sub-Roman Brythonic Celtic territory of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boggarts
A boggart is a supernatural being from English folklore. The dialectologist Elizabeth Mary WElizabeth Wright described the boggart as 'a generic name for an apparition'; folklorist Simon Young defines it as 'any ambivalent or evil solitary supernatural spirit'. Halifax, West Yorkshire, Halifax folklorist Kai Roberts states that boggart ‘might have been used to refer to anything from a hilltop hobgoblin to a household faerie, from a headless apparition to a proto-typical poltergeist’. As these wide definitions suggest boggarts are to be found both in and out of doors, as a household spirit, or a malevolent spirit defined by local geography, a ''genius loci'' inhabiting topographical features. The 1867 book ''Lancashire Folklore'' by John Harland, Harland and Wilkinson, makes a distinction between "House boggarts" and other types. Typical descriptions show boggarts to be Evil, malevolent. It is said that the boggart crawls into people's beds at night and puts a clammy hand on th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witches
Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', "Witchcraft thus defined exists more in the imagination", but it "has constituted for many cultures a viable explanation of evil in the world". The belief in witches has been found throughout history in a great number of societies worldwide. Most of these societies have used protective magic or counter-magic against witchcraft, and have shunned, banished, imprisoned, physically punished or killed alleged witches. Anthropologists use the term "witchcraft" for similar beliefs about harmful occult practices in different cultures, and these societies often use the term when speaking in English. Belief in witchcraft as malevolent magic is attested from ancient Mesopotamia, and in Europe, belief in witches traces back ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghosts
In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes to realistic, lifelike forms. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as necromancy, or in Kardecist spiritism, spiritism as a ''séance''. Other terms associated with it are apparition, haunt, haint, phantom, poltergeist, Shade (mythology), shade, specter, spirit, spook, wraith, demon, and ghoul. The belief in the existence of an afterlife, as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead, is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices of Spiritualism (beliefs), spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
