Powers and his son Boothe, alias MapHead, are visitors from the Subtle World - a world that exists side-by-side with our own.

Now 12, at the Dawn of Power, MapHead has come to meet his human mother for the first time, making his home on a farm, in a tomato house.

As his favourite period is Ancient Rome with its chariot races, the young traveller finds modern society bewildering.

He can flash up a map of any place across his head, but the rhythms and idioms of human speech are quite alien to him.

It is the language of the heart, though, about which he has most to learn if he is truly to find his power.;Lesley Howarth's first novel, "The Flower King" was shortlisted for the 1993 Whitbread Children's Novel Award and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. "MapHead" was shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Children's Book Award.