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Half Dutch, half English, Hana Tooke grew up near Amsterdam and moved to the south of England at the age of twelve. After completing a degree in music, and then a PGCE, Hana was a primary school teacher for several years. Hana also completed the Bath Spa University Writing for Young People MA, and The Unadoptables was shortlisted for The Bath Children's Novel Award 2018.
She lives in Bath with two humans and a cat.
Ema Vašková belongs to a family of famous scientists and yet she appears to have the very unscientific ability to predict events, but she is never allowed to talk about this. When she is sent to stay with her eccentric uncle in Prague, she fears she'll lose the chance to ever fit in and become a true scientist like her beloved older siblings. But there she meets the mysterious Silvie and soon the girls are meeting for secret midnight adventures aimed at conquering Ema’s fears. When Silvie disappears it’s up to Ema to find her with the only clue pointing to the mysterious Midnight Guild. Ema proves herself to be both resourceful and brave and she needs to be. It seems that Silvie has been on a quest to find a murderer and that Ema will discover more about her family history and her own abilities as well as save her friend. Ema is a really engaging heroine and this is an assured, inventive and original fantasy, populated with fascinating, and occasionally macabre, characters with which to follow Tooke’s acclaimed debut The Unadoptables and likely to prove just as popular.
Five fantastic children on the adventure of a lifetime | Warm-hearted and mysterious The Unadoptables is a wonderfully entertaining adventure with a cast of fascinating characters set in a brilliantly evoked old-world Amsterdam and the surrounding countryside. Following the clues from the only possessions she was left with when she was abandoned as a baby and guided by her ‘Book of Theories’, the imaginative Milou leads her four friends – the least adoptable children in the very horrible Little Tulip Orphanage – to her family home where she is sure she will find her parents. Travelling through a freezing night the children arrive at their destination. But there is not the welcome they had expected. Where are Milou’s parents? And what is the mystery they need to solve? The creative ways in which the five children manage first to escape from the evil clutches of their matron and her evil accomplice Rotman and then to make a new life for themselves bamboozling neighbours and unravelling the mystery is vivid and captivating.
A Julia Eccleshare Pick of the Month August 2020 | August 2020 Debut/Book of the Month | Warm-hearted and mysterious The Unadoptables is a wonderfully entertaining adventure with a cast of fascinating characters set in a brilliantly evoked old-world Amsterdam and the surrounding countryside. Following the clues from the only possessions she was left with when she was abandoned as a baby and guided by her ‘Book of Theories’, the imaginative Milou leads her four friends – the least adoptable children in the very horrible Little Tulip Orphanage – to her family home where she is sure she will find her parents. Travelling through a freezing night the children arrive at their destination. But there is not the welcome they had expected. Where are Milou’s parents? And what is the mystery they need to solve? The creative ways in which the five children manage first to escape from the evil clutches of their matron and her evil accomplice Rotman and then to make a new life for themselves bamboozling neighbours and unravelling the mystery is vivid and captivating.
