Adam and the Lantern Moon

You are not ready, little architect. But you will be.

On a wet Tuesday in Bradford, a hoopoe lands on Adam Siddiqui's window and writes his name in frost.

That night a thief in a faceless wooden mask steals his grandfather's brass astrolabe and steps out through the mirror above the fireplace. His Nani doesn't ring the police. She grabs her cricket bat and drives her Volvo straight at a painted wall.

Beyond it, under two moons, runs the Alif Road, and at its end a brass elephant guards a library so vast it fills a cavern. Here Adam learns why he sees hexagons in the rain, and that his Baba never simply went away.

On the Night of the Lantern, when the small moon crosses the big one, the astrolabe can tear open the Veil between two worlds. It is twenty nights away, and the thief can't do it without Adam.

A warm, funny and twisty adventure for readers aged 9 to 12, built on real history from the golden age of Islamic science: brass astrolabes, al-Jazari's water-driven automata, Ibn al-Haytham's camera obscura and the never-repeating girih patterns of Isfahan. Includes a glossary and a short note on the history behind the story.

The Alif Road, Book 1