The Gift

A boy with psychic powers struggles to save his loved ones

When Davy’s mother deserts their family, Davy’s father packs his children into a rickety old car and takes them on a vacation. They drive to their mysterious old grandparents’ house in the sprawling Welsh countryside, a place so rural that running water is a novelty. It is there that Davy learns he has the gift. He has always seen the pictures—images in his head that tell of the future or the past—but his grandmother explains that the gift is both a remarkable power and a terrible curse. It was the gift that killed Davy’s great-uncle—and it is the gift that could save his life.

Seven years later, Davy is in high school, and for the first time he can remember, life is almost normal. But when he starts having troubling visions of his father’s new employer he knows that only he can save his family from destruction.

Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.

The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association for two books running: The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest (1968) and The Old English Peepshow (1969).

A collection of Dickinson’s poetry, The Weir, was published in 2007. His latest book, In the Palace of the Khans, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.

Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.