This book offers a tense, exciting thriller combined with a perceptive and harrowing portrait of life on the streets as a serial killer preys on the young and vulnerable homeless. 17-year-old Link is distrustful of people until he pairs up with Deb, homeless like him. But what Deb doesn't tell him is that she's an ambitious young journalist on a self-imposed assignment to track down the killer and that she's prepared to use herself as bait. This book is the winner of the Carnegie Medal.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Robert Swindells lives on the Yorkshire moors and is a full-time writer. He has won the Children's Book Award twice, for BROTHER IN THE LAND and for ROOM 13. In 1994, he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD, and also the Sheffield Book Award.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stone Cold by Robert Swindells,
By Tarak Jallouli (Cologne, Germany) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stone Cold (Audio Cassette)
The book "Stone Cold" by Robert Swindells is about a teenager living on the street. He desribes his life in detail and the experiences of a street-life, the dangers and the feelings of a homeless. The novel wants to show us that we should be careful when judging homeless, because many of them are not guilty of their situation, like this young man, called Link, who left home because of the bad conditions there. Because Link is describng his life in his own words the text is full of slang, but you learn to understand it quickly. The structure of the novel is interesting, too. It is written from two different points of view. One is Link's, the other is Shelter's. Shelter is also one of the main characters, because he is crazy murderer killing the homeless. I think this novel is really worth reading, especially if you are between 12 and 18 years, because of the very realistic and exciting description of "street-life" by Link. If you read this book you learn to understand these poor "dossers" and their life.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stone Cold by Robert Swindells,
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Stone Cold (Puffin Teenage Fiction) (Paperback)
I've read Stone Cold for my English study.
The story begins when a boy named Link, who faces domestic abuse from his mother's boyfriend. After a while he can't take it anymore and he moves out and wants to live with his sister. However, his sister's boyfriend isn't very pleased with this situation, so Link is more or less forces to live on the street, but he feels so rejected and uncomfortable in his own hometown, that he decides to go to London. With some borrowed money he tries his luck there, but quickly realises that it isn't easy to find work or to get benefits from the authorities. He then ends up on the streets, where he tries to survive. It's cold, he gets mugged and he feels miserable. Then he shares a doorway with Ginger for the night and the next day Ginger tells Link the ins and outs of living on the streets. Link now has to try to make a living by begging for money, because nobody wants to hire him due to his scruffy appearance. Then homeless people start to mysteriously disappear and the story takes a suspenseful direction. What I like about the book is that the story is told from two perspectives: from the killer's point of view and from Link's perspective. While reading the book, I came to the conclusion that my own view on homeless people was incorrect. The book has changed my opinion on the matter and I think it's a great book to use in the classroom, to make youngsters understand that we have to take away prejudice and that homeless people are people too. We don't know their story and we don't know why they ended up on the street, so we shouldn't be so judgemental. I can recommend this book to anyone, because the setting/background, the characters and the language are very real and recognisable.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
read my review!!,
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Stone Cold (Puffin Teenage Fiction) (Paperback)
This book is about a boy, Link, who made himself homeless because of what he suffered at home. He moved to London and befriended another homeless boy, Ginger. He got along fine with Ginger but one night Ginger disappeared. Link felt angry at Ginger thinking he had just deserted him and planned on just going around on his own but fell for a girl called Gail who was apparently homeless too. He later came to find out that Ginger hadn't deserted him but had been killed by a psycho killer who named himself Shelter who had killed many other homeless children. Shelter, who was an ex-army solider, believed that homeless people that lived on the streets were just `filth' so planned on cleaning them up - in a cruel way. Shelter's and Link's lives and stories entwined when Ginger asked Shelter for money. After refusing, Shelter planned to `have it in' for them and managed to get Ginger but had to work hard to get Link. After trying to forget about Ginger, Link hung around with Gail until they had an argument which led to Link being caught by Shelter. Shelter didn't manage to kill Link though; he got caught by the police due to Gail telling them. In the end, we found out that Gail was actually not homeless at all; her name was Louise and she was a journalist who was researching homelessness.
I liked this book and how it was set out; Link's `diary' and then Shelter's `daily routines', especially when Link and Shelter had already met so it started getting interesting and we got to know things from Shelter that Link didn't but wanted to. I think the ending could have been improved as the story builds up, all exciting, then the ending is really rushed and leaves with loads of questions that aren't answered. I think Gail/Louise was actually very cruel to be all nice to Link and get him to like her then just leave him all of a sudden. All in all, I would give this book 7/10
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