the Dial and Seed

In the spring of 1940, with the world holding its breath across the Channel, four children are sent from Birmingham to their grandparents' cottage - Thomas, who is sixteen and carries more than a boy should; Katie, who notices what others miss; Samuel, who wants to know the reason for everything; and Audrey, the youngest, who has begun to hear something the others cannot.It is Audrey who hears it first. A sound, faint and far off, coming from the tall grandfather clock in the library - a clock that has kept a strange sort of time, and has been waiting, it seems, a very long while.On the other side of it lies a country that was sung into being, and whose song has begun to fail. Something there has been waiting a long while too - and it is said that what has been waiting is a King. Four children who can hear the song may be nearer to the heart of things than they know, with much still to learn about how to listen.A tale for readers of all ages - for children, and for everyone who still knows how to read as one.