Background
Hines was born in the mining village of Hoyland Common near Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
(Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to s...)
Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to say; part of the limbo generation of school leavers too old for lessons and too young to know anything about the outside world. He hates and is hated. His family and friends are mean and tough and theyre sure hes going to end up in big trouble. But Billy knows two things about his own world. Hell never work down the mines and he does know about animals. His only companion is his kestrel hawk, trained from the nest, and, like himself, trained but not tamed, with the will to destroy or to be destroyed. This in not just another book about growing up in the north - its as real as a slap in the face to those who think that orange juice and comprehensive schools have taken the meanness out of life in the raw working towns.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/7540447532/?tag=2022091-20
(Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to s...)
Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to say; part of the limbo generation of school leavers too old for lessons and too young to know anything about the outside world. He hates and is hated. His family and friends are mean and tough and they're sure he's going to end up in big trouble. But Billy knows two things about his own world. He'll never work down the mines and he does know about animals. His only companion is his kestrel hawk, trained from the nest, and, like himself, trained but not tamed, with the will to destroy or to be destroyed. This in not just another book about growing up in the north - it's as real as a slap in the face to those who think that orange juice and comprehensive schools have taken the meanness out of life in the raw working towns.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140029524/?tag=2022091-20
(The "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama an...)
The "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in durable classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. This book contains two plays by the author of "Kes" on a footballing theme.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0435232983/?tag=2022091-20
(Billy Casper is a fifteen-year-old with no future, growin...)
Billy Casper is a fifteen-year-old with no future, growing up in poverty and seemingly destined to follow his older brother into a life of toil in the coal mines. Life at home is hard: his father has left, his mother's main interest is in picking up men at the pub, and his brother bullies him mercilessly. Nor are things better at school, where Billy is tormented by the other kids and treated as a troublemaker by the teachers. But a spark of hope enters Billy's lonely existence when he discovers a young kestrel hawk, Kes, and learns to train it. Billy gives to Kes all the love and devotion he has been denied, and in the hawk's silent strength and fierce independence he finds inspiration and the courage to survive. An enduring work of English fiction, Barry Hines's bestseller A Kestrel for a Knave (1968) has never been out of print in Great Britain, where both the book and Ken Loach's film adaptation Kes (1969) have long been regarded as classics. This edition, the first ever published in the United States, will allow American readers to discover this timeless and moving novel. 'A masterpiece ... Billy Casper is as memorable a young character as any post-war writer has created.' - Glasgow Herald
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1941147887/?tag=2022091-20
(The Heinemann Plays series offers contemporary drama and ...)
The Heinemann Plays series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in durable classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. In this dramatization of Barry Hines's novel, 15-year-old Billy trains a kestrel for whom he learns to feel great affection.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1842621416/?tag=2022091-20
(One of the 'New Windmills' series offering classic and co...)
One of the 'New Windmills' series offering classic and contemporary fiction for schools to suit a range of ages and tastes. Determined not to follow his brother down the pit, Billy Casper is floundering at school and under pressure at home, but the wild hawk he finds and trains gives him a direction and passion.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M9C4D0K/?tag=2022091-20
Hines was born in the mining village of Hoyland Common near Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
He attended Ecclesfield Grammar School and played football for the England Grammar Schools team
He is best known for the novel A Kestrel for a Knave (1968), which he helped adapt for Ken Loach"s film Kes (1969). After leaving school with five O levels he took a job with the National Coal Board as an apprentice mining surveyor at Rockingham Colliery. A neighbour he chanced to meet at the coal face disapproved of his failure to meet his potential.
Hines later said that was when he decided to return to school to take his examinations.
He worked as a Physical Education teacher for several years, initially for two years in a London comprehensive school and subsequently at Longcar Central School in Barnsley, where he wrote novels in the school library after the children had gone home. He later became a full-time writer
Hines was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor of Letters) at the University of Sheffield on 14 January 2010. Hines died on 18 March 2016 at the age of 76.
(Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to s...)
(Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to s...)
(Billy Casper is a fifteen-year-old with no future, growin...)
(One of the 'New Windmills' series offering classic and co...)
(The "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama an...)
(The Heinemann Plays series offers contemporary drama and ...)