''Thunder and Lightnings'' is a
realistic children's novel
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...
by
Jan Mark
Jan Mark (22 June 1943 – 16 January 2006) was a British writer best known for children's books. In all she wrote more than fifty novels and plays and many anthologised short stories. She won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Associat ...
, published in 1976 by Kestrel Books of
Harmondsworth
Harmondsworth is a village in the London Borough of Hillingdon in the county of Greater London with a short border to the south onto Heathrow Airport, London Heathrow Airport and close to the Berkshire county border. The village has no railway st ...
in London, with illustrations by Jim Russell. Set in
Norfolk
Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
, it features a developing friendship between two boys who share an interest in aeroplanes, living near
RAF Coltishall
Royal Air Force Coltishall more commonly known as RAF Coltishall is a former Royal Air Force List of former Royal Air Force stations, station located north-north-east of Norwich, in the England, English Counties of the United Kingdom, county ...
during the months in 1974 when the Royal Air Force is phasing out its
English Electric Lightning
The English Electric Lightning is a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It is capable of a top speed above Mach 2. The Lightning was designed, developed, and manufactured ...
fighters and introducing the
SEPECAT Jaguar
The SEPECAT Jaguar is a British-French supersonic jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. As of 2025, the Jaguar remains in service with the ...
.
Mark won the annual
Carnegie Medal from the
Library Association
The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP, pronounced ) is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers in the United Kingdom.
It was established in 2002 as a merger of th ...
, recognising the year's best children's book by a
British subject
The term "British subject" has several different meanings depending on the time period. Before 1949, it referred to almost all subjects of the British Empire (including the United Kingdom, Dominions, and colonies, but excluding protectorates ...
.
[ She also won a prize for children's novels by new writers, sponsored by ''The Guardian'' newspaper.][
]Atheneum Books
Atheneum Books was a New York City publishing house established in 1959 by Alfred A. Knopf, Jr., Simon Michael Bessie and Hiram Haydn. Simon & Schuster has owned Atheneum properties since it acquired Macmillan in 1994, and it created Atheneum ...
published the first U.S. edition in 1979, retaining the Russell illustrations.[
]
Origins
Jan and Neil Mark and their daughter Isobel moved to Norfolk in 1973 and lived "directly under a flight-path, with Lightning fighters from RAF Coltishall taking off 200 feet above the roof".debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...
''Thunder and Lightnings'' for "the Kestrel/Guardian prize for a children's novel by a previously unpublished writer", and won it.[This was not the venerable ]Guardian Children's Fiction Prize
The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize or Guardian Award was a literary award that annually recognised one fiction book written for Children's literature, children or young adults (at least age eight) and published in the United Kingdom. It was conf ...
(1966 to present), which annually recognises a book by someone who has not yet won the award; Jan Mark never won that. Evidently it was co-sponsored by a publisher; 2006 obituaries in ''The Guardian'' and ''The Independent'' named it "Kestrel/Guardian" and "Penguin/Guardian" respectively.
Plot summary
Andrew Mitchell moves to Tiler's Cottage in East Anglia
East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included.
The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...
. He goes to his new school and meets Victor Skelton in General Studies class. The two slowly become friends and do things together, including going to RAF Coltishall to see the aeroplanes, which are English Electric Lightnings. Victor is devastated when he discovers that his beloved Lightnings are to be replaced with Jaguars.
See also
Notes
References
External links
—immediately, first US edition
{{s-end
1976 British novels
Aviation novels
British children's novels
Carnegie Medal in Literature–winning works
Novels set in Norfolk
1976 children's books
1976 debut novels