Ben Quotes

“Ben, the middle child in a large, busy family living in London, wants a dog. His grandparents give him an embroidered picture which leads to fantasy which has a violent culmination. ”

″.. but he receives a picture of a dog instead of a real one! But the imagination can be a powerful thing, and when Ben puts his to work, his adventures really begin!”

“So when the day comes for Ben to receive his gift from his grandparents, his heart is broken and trust shattered when he only receives a woven image of a Chihuahua in a frame.”

“Ben’s grandfather had promised him a dog for his birthday, but the promise was kept in an unusual way.”

“It’s a beautiful building, but there’s something rotten at its heart. Now he’s discovered it he can smell the stench of it everywhere.”

“They’re a family. They’re a family. And this isn’t Ben’s apartment: not really. Right now I’m sitting here inside someone’s family home. Why on earth didn’t Ben tell me this? Did it not seem important? Did he somehow not know?”

“Squirrel is the gnomes’ friend who accompanies them on their adventures. Ben is an owl who provides the gnomes with mouse skins for clothing.”

Hopeful of a less brutal life, he escapes to Sydney - only to be further disillusioned.

Ben, who has a telepathic ability to control animals, leads a hazardous existence in the bush west of the Blue Mountains.

Fourteen-year-old Ben lives rough in the bush outside Sydney, surviving in the wreckage of an Australia that fell apart after global catastrophe.

Ben, who has a telepathic ability to control animals, leads a hazardous existence in the bush west of the Blue Mountains.

“Ben crouched beside the dying animal, aware that he could do nothing to save it now -that in a sense that he had done too much already.”

Ben, who has a telepathic ability to control animals, leads a hazardous existence in the bush west of the Blue Mountains.

“But Johnny has only thought in his head and that’s his beloved bicycle, he just sits there staring at it, examining it, and gauging its chances of a life after this.”

Then, at the heart of the city he comes upon Taronga Zoo, which has been strangely unaffected by the general chaos.

“He had learned from long experience that the roo, lulled by his Call, would ignore her instinctive fear of the open sunlight and follow him.”

Ben has the strange ability to soothe and control animals, and this makes him valuable to the older and crueler boy who hunts the animals Ben Calls.

“Johnny pumped up the front tire, pumped up the back, listened to the echo from the inner tubes, let out a bit of air, jumped in some more, and checked the tires. Having completed that little ceremony, he handed over the pump to me. Me!”