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Billy decides to run away from his home in Liverpool without telling his father. He travels the 200 miles separating him from the little seaside town of Kewstoke on Azzurra (the mountain bike he has painstakingly assembled piece by piece) with the sole aim of reaching his grandfather’s care home as soon as possible, because he made a promise: if anything happens, kid, come straight here, OK? It’s the story of:

 

• Billy’s journey on his bicycle, the route he chooses along the country paths of England and Wales. The historic and beautiful locations he sees.•

 

The people he meets along the way: Joe, the Deliveroo guy who dreams of studying engineering; Annabelle, whose hair he cuts by night, and her brother Emmett, who laughs at swear words; Shackleton, the dog, who will follow him for the rest of his journey; Mr Richmal, who repairs Azzurra and helps him discover the world of nocturnal moths; the three sisters of the waterfall, who live alone in a country house, waiting for their mother.

 

• But above all, it’s the story of his thoughts, memories of his grandfather’s stories, all linked to music personalities of the seventies, whom he claims to have met and know well: from David Bowie to Keith Richards, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine.


Pierdomenico Baccalario started writing at an early age and won the Il Battello a Vapore Prize in 1998. Since then he has written many adventure stories, series, and fantasy novels for children, translated into 30 languages and published by top Italian and foreign publishers. For over 20 years he has worked with the Lucca Comics & Games organisation, as well as with La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera’s La Lettura. In 2013, he created the creative agency Book on a Tree, in London.

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