Kate Milner – illustratör

A gentle but important exploration of the growing problem of homelessness from the critically acclaimed and award-winning creator of My Name is Not Refugee and It’s a No-Money Day.A gentle but important exploration of the growing problem of homelessness from the critically acclaimed and award-winning creator of My Name is Not Refugee and It’s a No-Money Day.Mum can’t afford the rent any more, so she and her two young children have to move into a hostel while they wait their turn to get to the top of the housing list. Their new home throws up lots of challenges – they have to share a bathroom and the kitchen, and there is lots of noise at night. With no space to play or peace to do homework, tempers can fray, but as long as they have each other, they’ll find a way through.

Gazing at the stars from five storeys up,smelling the bins from five storeys below. Overheard arguments,overheard laughter.A disappearing father and a Mermaid-Queen mother; statues that sing for flesh and blood; bullies who kick you under the table; perfect red trainers – and the things that lurk in the library….Award-winning poet Joseph Coelho’s astonishing new collection is a powerful and moving poetic narrative about growing up in the city.

Daphne is unbearably sad and adrift. She feels the painful loss of her father acutely and seeks solace both in the security of her local library and the escape her phone screen provides by blocking out the world around her. As Daphne tries to make sense of what has happened she recalls memories of shared times and stories past, and in facing the darkness she finds a way back from the tangle of fear and confusion, to feel connected once more with her friends and family. The Girl Who Became a Tree sees Joseph Coelho deploy a wide variety of poetic forms with consummate skill in its narration of events. He seamlessly but searingly weaves together the ancient legend of Daphne, who was turned into a tree to avoid the attentions of the god Apollo, and a totally modern tale, mixing real-life and fantasy, in which a latter-day Daphne seeks her own freedom. This is a heart-stoppingly imaginative story told in poems, at times bleak and even tragic, which is layered, rich and ultimately a tour de force of poetic skill and energy.

In this highly acclaimed and prize-winning verse novel, Joseph Coelho brilliantly blends Greek myth with a 21st century quest.  In Ancient Greece Theseus makes a dangerous and courageous journey to find his father, finally meeting the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. While Theo, a modern-day teenage boy, finds himself on a maze-like quest to find his own father. Each story tells of a boy becoming a man and discovering what true manhood really means.The path to self-discovery takes Theo through ‘those thin spaces where myth, magic and reality combine’. Doubts, difficulties and dangers must be faced as Theo discovers the man he will become.