The Memory Cage: Alex has survived a war. Now his mind is the enemy.

No child should have to live through a war. No child should have to see what Alex has seen. He's locked it all away in a secret place but, one day, the ticking time bomb in his mind has to detonate. Alex's family want to help, but they have other problems. Only Alex's beloved grandfather can answer his questions about family secrets. But Grandad is scarred by a war of his own - and his memories are fading fast as the effects of Alzheimer's grip him. Time is running out for Alex. Only by unlocking the terrors of the memory cage for both of them, can he hope to escape the nightmares. Ruth Eastham 's middle-grade novel The Memory Cage - shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize - is a transfixing story about adoption, Alzheimer's, the strength of the relationships within families through testing times, and the effects our memories have on how we live the rest of our lives.

Ruth Eastham is an award-winning author from the UK. Her debut novel, The Memory Cage, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, and won the Inspiration Book Award. Teachers voted it best story in the UK Literacy Association Book Award, and it won and was shortlisted for many other regional prizes. The Memory Cage was also nominated for the prestigious Carnegie Medal. Her second book, The Messenger Bird, won and was shortlisted for many local authority book prizes and its Enigma Code themes made it a featured book at the famous Bletchley Park. Ruth is a popular speaker in schools, in the UK and abroad, fascinating children with the real life mysteries and dramas behind these and her other books: Arrowhead, The Jaguar Trials and, her latest novel, The Warrior in the Mist. Ruth has lived in New Zealand, Australia and Italy and has two daughters.