When she is eleven years old, Martine is orphaned and sent to live with her grandmother on a game reserve in South Africa. Her grandmother seems strangely unwelcoming and Martine has a difficult time settling in at her new school, where she is conspicuously an outsider. But she has an ally in Tendai - one of the keepers on the reserve, from whom she learns the lore and survival techniques of the bush, and in Grace - who instantly senses there is something special about Martine. There are secrets about Sawubona (the reserve) just waiting to be revealed, and rumours too about a fabled white giraffe - a trophy for hunters everywhere. One night Martine, lonely and feeling slightly rebellious too, looks out of her window and see a young albino giraffe - silver, tinged with cinnamon in the moonlight. This is the beginning of her mysterious and magical adventures - her discovery of her gift of healing and a secret valley that she travels to with the giraffe, where she'll find clues about her past and future. Above all it's is a heart-warming story, full of charm and atmosphere, and Martine's sheer delight in her giraffe friend and the fantastic landscape which is theirs to explore.
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Lauren St John grew up surrounded by horses, cats, dogs, horses and a pet giraffe on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, the inspiration for her bestselling White Giraffe and One Dollar Horse series. At 17, she spent a year in the UK working as a veterinary nurse before becoming a sports and music journalist. Dead Man's Cove, the first in her Laura Marlin M
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David Dean graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1999 with a BA in Illustration. He has illustrated multiple award-winning books and is known for his lively and colourful work, with a strong focus on mood and drama. He has won acclaim for his beautiful covers for the reissued Michael Morpurgo books, whic
