The Convicts (19 page)

Iain Lawrence studied journalism in Vancouver, British Columbia, and worked for small newspapers in the northern part of the province. He settled on the coast, living first in the port city of Prince Rupert and now on the Gulf Islands. An avid sailor, he wrote two nonfiction books about his travels along the coast before turning to children's novels. With
The Convicts,
Lawrence returns to his favorite place and period— nineteenth-century England. He remembers being on a family outing in southern Ontario when he saw a prisoner being transported to the federal penitentiary in Kingston. Though he was only six or seven years old, he never forgot the sight of the man peering from the barred window in the back of the armored truck. “There we were, all playing in the grass at a roadside rest stop,” says Lawrence, “and there he went, shrinking down the highway on a bright summer day. For a moment I looked at him, and he looked at me, and it was enough to give me an everlasting horror of prisons.” The only time Lawrence spent in prison was when he was locked in the jail cell of a police station during a school tour in fourth grade.

Iain Lawrence is the author of six other acclaimed novels. His novels for younger readers include the High Seas Trilogy:
The Wreckers, The Smugglers,
and
The Buccaneers;
as well as
Lord of the Nutcracker Men.
His novels for young adults are
Ghost Boy
and
The Lightkeeper's Daughter.

You can find out more about Iain Lawrence at www. iainlawrence.com.

Published by Laurel-Leaf
an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.

New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2005 by Iain Lawrence

All rights reserved.

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www.randomhouse.com/teens

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RL: 5.2

eISBN: 978-0-307-51819-4

August 2006

v3.0