2026 Winners
Children's & YA Winner
Self published
When the Sky Turned to Dust
Catherine Matthias
This is a deeply immersive historical novel about the dustbowl years in Kansas during the 1930s, with well-imagined characters, landscape and a genuine feel for the point in history. Ferocious black cloud storms strip the land of everything that grows and fill the house with dust. This is a moving, richly imagined and well-researched book about a family whose Mama decides to take the baby and sibling twins to live with an uncle and aunt, far away from the lethal storms. Caroline and Daniel are expected to go too, but they return to help their father. There are many challenges and dangers, but their desire to help each other and care about the other tenant farmers who are their friends are the strength of the stoy. We feel their despair when longed-for crops are stripped from the ground, the roots of vegetables bake in the ground and farm animals in the fields are swept away. But it is also uplifting to read of their determination to survive. The sensory details draw in the reader, especially the opening scene, with the children waking under layers of dust. The reader almost feels the dust in their lungs and the powerlessness of being confronted with such desperate conditions. Caroline makes a clear and sympathetic first person narrator, battling through a terrifying storm to save her younger brother. It’s a strong and atmospheric historical work for children, but manages to remain accessible and dramatic, trusting the reader to engage with difficult realities without oversimplification.
Children's Illustrated Winner
Hedgehog and the Fence
Helene Gardiner
A simple, but powerful story about a hedgehog who discovers that his normal route to the gardens where he sources his food has been blocked by a new fence. A bee, an ant, a beetle and a worm offer help, and together they consider many possibilities, none of which work. They try pushing Hedgehog up to the top, then squeezing him through a tiny hole, and then building a mound of stones which immediately collapses when he climbs up. They even come up with an ingenious method of catapulting Hedgehog from a seesaw, which inevitably ends in comical disaster. Nothing works until a rat comes along and gnaws a hole to get through. The illustrations are strong and clear, while changes in size and style of text reflects the enormous efforts gone to by the animals. The book gives a powerful message about resourcefulness and co-operation and the more obvious need to allow spaces for hedgehogs to move around. There’s no sense, however, that the reader is being lectured. It’s a lovely funny book for younger children, beautifully illustrated.
Little Bug Publishing
Non Fiction Winner
The Spirit of the Rainforest
Rosa Vásquez Espinoza
Gaia
This is a beautifully written book written as a ‘quest to reconnect with the natural world’. With its mix of science and nature writing, it gives the reader the chance to visit somewhere truly remote through the eyes of someone who loves and understands it. Dr Espinoza has that wonderful knack of making the science understandable, and enthusing the reader at the same time. She sees it as a journey into our humanity, underpinned by the premise that Mother Earth should be our priority, and it’s hard to argue with that, or the eloquent celebration of the rainforest that she offers. It begins with touching references to her grandmother, an inspirational figure who taught her that everything is alive and connected, a perspective the author adopts as a scientist, and which informs the book at every level. She identifies a symbiotic relationship between nature, culture, health, and spirituality, exploring a world where landscape is sentient. She considers the myths of indigenous peoples alongside hard science, and argues for their compatibility, advocating new ways of seeing. She tell us about the Ashaninka community, and their concept of ‘beautiful living’ - i.e. living in harmony with nature, mindful of interconnection and reciprocation - the ultimate in green awareness! In the Pharmacopoeia sections, there are holy woods with cleansing energies, water vines, immunity boosting fruits, etc. where science dovetails with myth. The books describes boiling rivers, stingless bees, all in beautiful prose, which combines infectious enthusiasm with an ability to evoke a sense of place, appealing to all the senses like the rainforest itself. We learn that it isn’t just chemistry that dwells within flowers, but emotions and spirituality: the transcendent life force that animates reality itself. The drawing of a plant at the beginning of each chapter, and information about each one holds it all together. This world of luminescent scorpions and pink dolphins is truly wonderful.
Fiction
Winner
Immortal North
Tom Stewart
This is a gorgeous, atmospheric, visceral novel reminiscent of the best wilderness narratives, from Jack London to The Revenant. The first two thirds are slow moving but thoroughly absorbing as we follow the trapper and his son, learning about their history and daily lives. The pace reflects the subject with genuinely beautiful writing. Stewart has an excellent eye for descriptive details, revealing father and son via their routines and small pleasures: the trapper brewing morning coffee and savouring the smell, for instance, watching his son sleep as ‘his breaths raise and lower the blankets in the semidarkness’. There are many insights into wilderness survival, hunting techniques, and the morality of killing for food: there’s an intelligent philosophical dimension to the story, and the father’s desire to educate the boy and raise him to live ethically helps us warm to him, as does his history of bereavement: first his parents and later his wife. The details of his wife’s death are rendered with immense emotional force, and we feel his despair at a death ‘that shrivelled up his already tiny heart’. Her presence is felt throughout the book as she returns in the trapper’s dreams, and particularly in the final third when he faces the agony of loss again. From this point the story gathers momentum, becoming a propulsive revenge narrative with a dramatic, thrilling conclusion that’s not for the faint hearted! A superb novel.
Lucky Dollar
Poetry &
Short Fiction Winner
Necrosmologies
Anthony Cartwright
The Braag Press CIC
A short but very dense collection of interlinked stories/flashes all set in imaginary industrial/post-industrial worlds above and beneath ground. Reading this is like squinting one eye up and staring into a Black Country kaleidoscope which with each shift reveals something else of the region’s pre-history, mythologies, past, presents, and futures. It’s a very visual piece of work. Cartwright is known for his superb social realist novels about working class Black Country life, but he takes a different approach to the region here, blurring the line between reality and imagination in tales that are often dreamlike, but no less authentic. He creates the term ‘necrocapitalism’ to describe ‘an economic system reliant on death and the profits arising from it’: it underpins the Black Country in many of these fantastical vignettes, like the bones that fuel the glue factory in the unsettling opening, ‘Bone Fishing’. They often read as dark allegories of industrialisation, like ‘At Coombawood Steamwork’, where a hungry dragon drives transient prosperity, but seeks a devastating revenge for its labour. Some monsters come from the dark recesses of the unconscious, as in ‘Sam and the Black-Winged Angel of Fatherless Barn’, where the tormented mind takes shape in a world of drink and mangled myth. In ‘The Beetle Sea’ and ‘Llyn Cau’ threat resides below a symbolic waterline, ready to rise like an unruly Kraken, ‘a wall of water and a wall of flesh above that, then upon us’. A trauma haunts the region that won't be repressed, then, and in some stories death is no escape. There’s a general sense of transition and loss: a legacy of distress, damage and exploitation that often makes for unsettling elegies - the tone is one of bewildered melancholy in the final story, ‘Shrine’, where an old lady in ‘an old canteen pinafore’ pushes her shopping trolley into oblivion as ‘birds caw and wheel in widening circles’. We can't quite fathom what disappears with her, but we sense that it's something important, and irreplaceable. A superb collection.
Fiction Shortlist
Under the Same Moon
AS Andrejevic
APS Books
This is a well-crafted thriller set against the backdrop of Britain and Serbia, exploring complex family relationships, and socio-economic factors in the aftermath of war. The author is Serbian, and obviously very close to her subject, with a deep understanding of her protagonist’s conflicts and emotional life. The Serbian perspective on post-Yugoslavia’s upheavals and trauma provide a fascinating context for a compelling story. The mystery surrounding Mladen and his appearance in Jelena’s comfortable life is brilliantly done: particularly the air of menace and developing sexual tension. The story moves effortlessly between time-frames, ratcheting up the suspense by degrees. The central characters have strong presence, particularly Jelena, whose story teems with specific details: it never loses focus or momentum, with convincing scenes across a variety of locations from Serbia to England, from affluent Hampstead to tawdry Soho strip clubs. It’s a propulsive read, but it also explores serious issues with obvious contemporary relevance: identity, cultural heritage, immigration, and the ethics, politics and media representation of warfare. It’s a very strong book, really well written. The characters are exceptionally well-drawn, and the reader gets an insight into a world perhaps not often represented.
The Immortal Woman
Su Chang
House of Anansi
This is a multi-generational novel, spirited and entertaining, about the impact of China’s Cultural Revolution on a Shanghai family. It starts with portrayals of life in Red China, the cultural revolution and eventually moves beyond. The initial turmoil is convincingly rendered from the point-of-view of Lemei, a young girl still at school, and the compromises she is forced to make as a young woman feed nicely into one of the book’s key themes: how to retain agency in the face of socio-political forces. She resolves to live a lie in public, but keeps the truth alive in her mind. The movement of characters across continents makes this a politically relevant book in view of the current climate, and this makes the stories all the more compelling. When the action shifts to North America and Lemei’s daughter Lin, the narrative remains compelling and retains its force. Lin has her own prejudices to contend with among the Chinese diaspora, and Chang deals well with the various issues this raises: questions of politics, race, and cultural heritage are all addressed in an informed way, feeding seamlessly into the plot and measuring Western culture against modern China. The book has balance and political nous, and we have a good general sense of the forces that bear on the protagonists. The narrative is immersive and convincing. It’s an excellent book.
Edisson and Jeremiah
Michael Carin
Guernica Editions
An intelligent, inventive novel bursting with wonderfully likeable characters, all with colourful back stories, especially Edisson’s two fathers and his engimatic mother. The novel addresses the most troubling aspects of contemporary life, from the rise of the radical-right to the terrifying potential of rampant AI, while still managing to be enormous fun. The political and metaphysical merge in a convincing world that shows signs of comprehensive research and political insight. It has an original take on the American far-right, and the possibilities of interconnected consciousness. So much of this novel is superb - the short opening chapters juxtaposing timelines, the journal charting Edisson's development, especially the scenes with Edisson and Nat Goldstein, the owner of the theatre: their dialogue, like many of the exchanges in the book, is sharp and funny, and Carin has a good ear for the Jewish American voice. Amusingly, he relates the review of Miranda’s book ‘Things Fall Up’: “She cannot tell a story without going off in a myriad of detours…she has a meaningful motive for every diversion”. You can’t help wondering if he’s critiquing his own book. It’s impressive and rewarding, an important comment on America society, leaving the reader with much to think about.
The Garfield Conspiracy
Owen Dwyer
Ely’s Arch
An inventive, genre bending novel that’s laden with self-aware whimsy and literary weirdness. It begins, conventionally enough, with an ageing, blocked writer’s relationship with a younger woman - indeed it feels like a Philip Roth story in the early stages - an exploration of gender based power-balance in work/academia/publishing. Gradually, it becomes clear that Richard is also investigating the assassination of President James A Garfield, and whether or not his murder should be attributed to the man who shot him or if other people were involved. The research is set against the narrator’s spiraling mental health. The ‘characters’ from the Garfield plot start to visit him and talk to him about their role in the politics of the 1870s/1880s America. While the affair is predictable, the intervention of characters from American history takes the book in an unexpected direction. The mystery surrounding the assassination of President Garfield plays into the story of Richard’s life in various subtle ways, and of course the question of his sanity also helps keep us interested. This is crafted with skill, and has an occasional pleasing humorous dimension, despite the dark themes - the depiction of the pugnacious Republican Roscoe Conkling, for instance, forever spoiling for a bout of fisticuffs. The book is well written, equally convincing in its historical and contemporary settings, and its themes and works remarkably well on both levels.
The Pale Flesh of Wood Elizabeth A Tucker
She Writes Press
An engaging novel about family dynamics in twentieth century California, encompassing three generations. It explores family secrets and the impact of trauma on close relationships with a narrative that weaves convincingly backwards and forwards in both time and place. These temporal shifts gradually deepen our appreciation of the family’s history. The characters have presence too, particularly Lyla whose perspective we share for the majority of the book; her father Charles is well-drawn in the early sections, and his suicide not only becomes the catalyst for so much that follows, it also leads to the unravelling of the disfunction of the past. The uncertainty surrounding his motivation helps hold our attention: it points in a number of directions from PTSD from his war experiences to poor parenting, but the novel closes with a revelation that forces us to reassess our assumptions. The metaphors are deftly handled and Tucker has a great ear for dialogue. The novel begins and ends with the tree where Lyla’s father hangs himself at the beginning of the book and leads to an ending where she starts a relationship with the arborist who fells the suicide tree. It lends a satisfying arc to the entire narrative. A generational story, beautifully told.
Non Fiction Shortlist
Undefeatable
Julian Evans
Scotland Street Press
This is both an exceptional piece of journalism and a brilliant memoir about the author’s relationship with the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Evans gives a lively account of the city’s history, which dwells inevitably on its status as a site of conflict: we get a strong sense of its culture and politics, and the issues shaping the regional psyche. There are some superb character portraits, most notably of the local woman who became the author’s wife, Natasha, whose Eastern European idiosyncrasies are a delight (It’s devastating to read of their divorce). We have the impression of a blighted city, witness to countless hair-raising atrocities, but Evans captures its beauty, energy and indomitable spirit: he writes like a dream, getting the most from his story with deftly structured, well- researched, and emotionally engaged prose. He never forgets that he offers an outsider’s perspective on his subject, but he knows that world intimately, and his affection for the city and its people is infectious. Ultimately he makes a passionate case for Ukraine’s mission to retain its independence. The book isn’t just a love letter to a city, but a general call to arms for those who claim to value democracy in the tradition of Orwell and Hemmingway.
Flora of the Orinoco
Ivan Mikolji
Self Published
This is a big book. Once it’s on your coffee table, it will likely stay there, partly because of its size and weight, but also because of its endlessly fascinating pictures and information. It’s an extraordinary photographic record of aquatic and semi-acquatic plants across the Orinoco River Basin documented by Mikolji, a Venezuelan explorer. Photographs sweep across every page, bold, clear, beautiful, overshadowing the technical details that he meticulously records. This is the work of a highly knowledgeable scientist who appreciates the value of photography as an artform. There’s no need for exaggeration or artistic licence – nature speaks for itself. The book is full of fascinating little details. Mikolji tells us how local people leave flowers where someone dies, and how they favour plastic flowers because they last longer. So when he first saw Yauaperi River Sobralia, pink flower, it was so perfect, he assumed it was plastic. ‘I was not even going to photograph it until my brain said “we are in a very remote area. Who would bring an offering this far away?”’ In another example, we are told about the Carabobo Palm, which withstands extremely strong currents. It minimizes erosion, preventing small substrate granules and large rocks from moving downhill as they get tangled in its roots. Again, nature protecting itself when it’s left to its own methods. This is an endlessly fascinating book that can be returned to over and over again.
Vanishing Places
Amy Hopkins
APA
This is a beautiful book, focusing on locations under threat of disappearing. Many of the places listed you’d expect to see mentioned (Venice, Machu Picchu, etc) although there are plenty of curious locations, such as Kihnu, the Estonian ‘Island of Women’ in the Baltic Sea, which is apparently ‘Europe’s last matriarchy’. There are many fascinating and quirky stories, from Denmark’s moving lighthouse to Berlin’s repurposed runways, and the ghost town capital of Montserrat, Plymouth, ‘the Pompeii of the Caribbean’. Threats are everywhere, from climate change to tourism, from development to deforestation, from wildfires to flooding, from drug-trafficking to neglect, from urbanisation to desertification. There are many sad stories, of course, some close to home, like the disappearing houses in the coastal village of Hembsy, including the account of the army veteran who borrowed a tractor to ‘haul his beloved bungalow ten metres inland’. The chapter on British seaside towns is also saddening, although apparently some are beginning to rally: Ramsgate is allegedly a ‘hipster hotspot’ now. Unsurprisingly, many stories warn of overtourism. Santorini’s vineyards have plans to enforce a daily limit of 8,000 cruise passengers on Santorini’s vineyards – if 8000 is the new limit, how many are coming now? The entries are invariably well-written, respectful, environmentally aware, politically informed, and succinctly informative; but perhaps the best feature is the photography, which is utterly stunning throughout.
On the Couch
Andrew Jamieson
Notting Hill Editions
An analysis of 20 famous 20th century figures, offering a coherent and illuminating introduction to key psychoanalytical theories. There is a great mix between the ‘textbook’ information, the examples by way of famous people and from the author’s own practice. It begins with a fascinating account of Picasso’s ego-driven genius, his struggle to manage his emotional ambivalence, and, in later life, the ‘terror of extinction’. There follows an excellent chapter on Nelson Mandela. Here Jamieson observes how those who ‘emerge through the process of individuation… become individuals of moral integrity, compassionate humility and strength of purpose, and can be set against narcissistic, morally corrupt and venal personalities like Vladimir Putin’. Jamieson draws interesting parallels between Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka: both had difficult, ambivalent relationships with their fathers which shaped their creative lives, although Woolf was the luckier of the two for having outlived hers. This enjoyable book combines detailed and rigorous psychoanalysis with informative and entertaining biography; while it’s written principally for a lay reader, there is also plenty of explanation of the discipline and its exponents. The theories are applied in an accessible and convincing way, and it’s easy to relate to the high profile case studies. Snippets of interesting trivia keep the reader entertained: it was interesting to hear, for instance, that Freud only sold 351 copies of The Interpretation of Dreams in the first six years of publication. Some may be shocked he sold that many!
A Physical Education
Jonathan Taylor
Goldsmith Press
An articulate and illuminating memoir exploring the issue of bullying through the lens of literature and critical theory. The author’s own experiences of bullying, of physical beatings and humiliation from a teacher and fellow pupils are sometimes hard to read, but he manages to avoid the excesses of the misery memoir. This is mainly because he’s often very funny and seems to have a resigned acceptance of the way he was treated at school, noting that much of it faded into the background as they all grew older. He focuses on the kind of commonplace bullying pervading most social environments, particularly school and the workplace. The book is very relatable in this sense, and while some of the theory – from Michel Foucault to Jacques Derrida – is potentially abstruse, Taylor’s account is refreshingly accessible. His use of his own experiences and those of characters from literature to illustrate points works well and and bring humanity and relatability to his writing. The central point that ‘the subjective experience of cruelty isn’t relativistic to the psyche that’s affected’ is certainly incontestable, and I’m sure many readers who’ve been dismissed as ‘oversensitive’ will find some validation here. He doesn’t offer solutions, other than that ‘we need to be individualistic enough to resist the whole ecology of power’ - easier said than done, of course, in a world where, as Taylor elsewhere suggests ‘We are all guilty of everything’ (Professor Caligula, on whom he exacts his own passive-aggressive revenge, would certainly agree with him there!). This is a very well-researched, readable, and edifying book, worth reading by anyone contemplating a career in education.
YA & Children's
In Between Girl
Sheelagh Aston
Resolute Books
An entertaining coming-of-age story set among the Amish community. This was entered as an adult novel, but the judges felt that it worked better as YA. The plot has all the components of a thriller, but its main appeal is Hannah’s dilemma, and the cultural heritage that shapes her life and thinking. The Amish elements are a real treat, offering a wealth of fascinating detail and a cogent moral underpinning. The book has much to say and describe about Amish society, and it provides an effective context for a story of this kind. The cultural details, the clothes, the buggies, the smattering of Pennsylvania Dutch, etc are informative and fascinating. There’s plenty of action and intrigue to keep us engaged, from violent drug gangs to Hannah's relationship with the feckless Sol, and a strong sense of escalating danger. Her quandary is the principal driver, however, and it’s not that easy to predict how this might be resolved, particularly given the escape option offered by Theo, her ‘English’ biological father. The book has it both ways at the end, with Hannah staying and her brother. This was handled well and the author managed to keep the reader guessing despite the weight of generic conventions.
Sienna Fitch
Louise E. Hollamby
Self Published
This is story of three generations all involved in some way with a smuggling mystery. Sienna is a teenage girl whose mother has recently died. She and her father have moved into the Cornish village where her mother grew up. To begin with, she is crippled by grief and unwilling to even go out or communicate with her father, but gradually she is won over by the rugged scenery and the various people she meets. Everyone is struck by her resemblance to her mother and reveal things from her mother’s youth that she didn’t know. Wanting to know what led her mother to leave, Sienna starts to investigate further, with the help of a shadowy boy who appears and disappears at important moments. As she attempts to get to the truth behind the mysteries and misunderstandings, she encounters unexpected opposition and resistance from people who were apparently friends once but now no longer speak to each other. Her gradual unravelling of the truth leads to changes and it is pleasing to see the author’s generosity towards characters who were originally unsympathetic. Sienna has to demonstrate strength and bravery, especially in the thrilling climax when her life is threatened. It’s a good yarn, a proper ‘Girls’ Own’ story, with lots of detective work, fighting, a friendly and supportive ghost boy called Peter, and an inexplicable amount of adults who don’t call the police.
Dirt
Laura Baggaley
Habitat Press
A brisk, entertaining eco-themed love story set in a credible dystopian future. There was a good contrast between Sam’s town and Avril’s secret family farm, and the Romeo and Juliet style entanglement that develops between them, ultimately bringing their communities together. It imagines a world where the problems of food scarcity are compounded by corporate corruption, ignorance, and fear, which creates a convincing context for conflict, but also offers some solutions, giving the novel a refreshing, upbeat feel uncharacteristic of this genre. I enjoyed Avril’s quirkiness at the beginning of the story, and the mystery that surrounds her and intrigues Sam. The rapid development of their romance is punctuated by setbacks and frustrations that help sustain the tension. It’s an informed and politically astute book too. The farming details are interesting, and the solution to the community’s problems offers a worthwhile, pleasingly idealistic lesson in productive collaboration, solidarity and mutual. It’s a book that could also appeal to younger readers, with little bits of science and information about ecology to be picked up along the way.
Dogland Rescue
Martin Lloyd
Self Published
This is a graphic novel that gradually becomes darker as it goes along, so it would probably be more suitable for teenagers. The characters are all dogs, some on two legs, some on four, living in an idyllic village on the edge of the river. Everything changes when barbed wire appears on the other side of the river in front of St Bernard’s Home for orphaned dogs, which is run by Mr and Mrs MacDuff, ‘two of the gentlest retrievers who ever walked the earth.’ The situation rapidly deteriorates when the orphanage is taken over by a gang of thugs. Mr MacDuff escapes and the dogs from the village plan a series of daring rescue plans to save Mrs MacDuff and the orphans. The pictures are detailed and lovingly created, bright and colourful for the good dogs, dark and cold for the bad dogs, who thrive on violence. It’s easy to follow, with an exciting and enjoyable story and plenty of humour. The book portrays the dogs’ world as a rural idyll, with a high street full of interesting shops, an ice-cream van, a steam train, all surrounded by farmland, while the villains are painted as stupid, but ruthless. Fortunately, all ends well. Mrs MacDuff is rescued, the baddies removed and peace is restored.
Dawn of the Novus
A. A. McLean
New Generation Publishing
This is a dystopian novel, set in a future Earth where the entire population has been living underground for many generations because the world outside is unfit . The Novus are robot slaves, who are there to serve the humans. They are not intended to have personality, but this is changing and it becomes increasingly clear that they are developing consciousness and a desire to rebel. The underground Earth is divided into areas with names like Kilimanjaro, where fuel is produced, Everest for textile workers, and Vinson for metal workers etc. The book is narrated by Skylar, a young orphan, and it starts with Disclosure, a procedure where all sixteen year olds are assigned to their future areas. He and some of his new-found friends are sent unexpectedly to Denali, a part of the world that they know nothing about, and then into a secret mind-based research programme. The story is exciting and imaginative with a satisfying conclusion. Sky, with his gradually developing psychic powers, makes an excellent narrator with a strong narratorial voice. His strength and belief in himself, along with his loyalty to his newly acquired friends, make him a likeable and compelling character. We are drawn into his world right from the beginning and share his desire to find out more about the changes that are taking place.
Illustrated Children's Books
The Adventures of Mrs Crockess and Ivy: No Pockets? No Problem
Julia Kolouch
Miriam Laundry Publishing
This is a delightful book, full of dramatic and vivid pictures and an unlikely story which is nevertheless entirely convincing. Mr and Mrs Briggs bring home a new dog, who they name Mrs Crockess. Mrs Crockess settles down easily into her new home adored by Mr and Mrs Briggs and Ivy, their daughter. They play songs together, Mrs Crockess on drums and Ivy on guitar, until a string snaps on the guitar. They decide to go and buy a new string at the music store and this is when the problems start, because Mrs Crockess doesn’t have pockets to carry the money, their keys and all the other things they need. They put everything into Ivy’s pocket, but it breaks. A frantic search for a bag takes place, followed by a mad dash to the music store before it closes. All is well in the end, and they rock all through the night. An unusual, but fun book.
The Pirate Tree
Brigita Orel
Lantana Publishing
This is a simple story about imagination and friendship. Sam is in the tree that doubles as a pirate ship when Agu approaches. They don’t know each other, because he’s a newcomer and not from her street. But gradually he proves to be useful, as he knows things that she doesn’t. He tells her that diamonds don’t come from Nigeria, because that’s where he comes from. So they set sail together over the warm south seas and fight pirates until it’s time to go home for dinner. They agree to travel together again as they make their way home. The pictures are uncluttered and attractive, full of movement, with plenty of room round the characters on the page, so they stand out and are clear and easy to follow. The message is a straightforward one, that you can be friends with anyone once you get to know them, especially if you share the same interests.
Damson’s Friendship Wish
Deborah Lawson
Self Published
Damson is a young, Bambi-like deer, who wants to make new friends. He is too nervous to talk to the other deer because they are so graceful and he is not, so he thinks he will find other animals to be friends with. He approaches a rabbit, which runs away, terrified, then watches a squirrel bury acorns. He thinks this is a game, so he digs them up again. This doesn’t go down well with the squirrel. He climbs a tree to make friends with the birds, but falls out of the tree before he can go far. Then an owl tells him he doesn’t need to copy other animals because he is already perfect. So he goes back to put right his mistakes, and everyone now wants to be friends with him. So the message is it’s better to be kind than try to copy others. The woodland pictures are sweet and sunny, echoing the innocence of the young deer. It’s a simple message about friendship, wanting to fit in, but feeling different.
How the Platypus Became
Jonny Parry
River & Sky Books
This is a book that imagines how the platypus came into existence. The book shows four animals who are not happy with the life they have. The cat is jealous of the fish, the fish is jealous of the duck, the duck is jealous of the frog and the frog is jealous of the cat. They don’t like feeling jealous, so they decide to do something about it and head up a hill to a place called the Spark, which is at the centre of the Earth. They take a breath, act together and jump into the Spark. A new animal emerges with all the good qualities of each animal. One of a kind. It’s a simple and powerful way of explaining all the fascinating qualities of a platypus, and how co-operation can produce something more interesting than the original. The illustrations are powerful and immersive and should appeal to any child with a curious mind. And it ends usefully with a page of fun facts about the platypus.
Grumpy Gnome
Peter Wiholm
Self Published
Grumpy gnome was once a house gnome who kept everything running smoothly on a farm and now sits at home being bad-tempered. He is reluctant to come out of retirement to help a father and daughter who are managing the farm so badly because they have no practical skills. But when they get stuck in snow in their truck, he comes to their rescue, riding in on a very large pig to save them. The strength of this book is the beautiful, immersive illustrations. They take up the entire page and create an old-fashioned fairy-tale world where sheep in the background sledge down hills and play with giant snowballs, and where the three ducks, Brenda, Carlos and Sven, watch from the sidelines. The hostile world of cold and snow and ice contrasts with the images of a warm, cosy, cared-for home with a fire in the hearth and food on the table.
Poetry & Short Fiction
Cold Toast
Kathryn Aldridge-Morris
Dahlia Books
Wild Boar
Jenny Hope
V. Press
This is a truly excellent collection, tightly written and darkly funny, that would continue to be rewarding however many times you read it. The opening story, These Boots are Made for Walkin’, sets the tone for the book, with its humorous, subversive take on patriarchy: Astrid’s silver boots become a symbol of resistance and autonomy in a world where women get walked on. The voice is strong, and the author is good at capturing natural voices, as in the brilliant, single-sentence story Double Lives, where a duped woman begins to realise the extent of her ignorance. Often there’s a darkness in the humour, and stories like Yellow Straw, Red Straw have the unsettling feel of early Ian McEwan tales. There’s a strong period awareness too: her take on the 1970s, with its ‘brown curtains’ and ‘burnt orange sofas’ is superb in ‘Cold Toast’, for instance, as is her ability to convey the frustration of cheated-on wives with limited options beyond TV and tranquilisers. The collection teems with apposite cultural references, from the Yorkshire Ripper to Hamlet cigars, Rubik Cubes to package holidays in Monistir, creating a vivid context for heartfelt tales of gender inequality and masculine toxicity. It is fiction that wittily exposes the darker side of the ‘70s, with little time for nostalgia, and it sustains its quality throughout.
On New Street I See a Mermaid
Annette Iles
Crystal Clear Books
These poems are delightfully down-to-earth, and the author has a wonderful eye for evocative detail. Her interest in the mundane and her ability to find transformative moments in ostensibly meagre lives are both extremely enjoyable. The title poem is an excellent example: here she makes a mermaid’s tail of a homeless lady’s ‘stained sleeping bag … fishtailed around her legs’; it closes with the strange, gorgeous image of her ‘singing/of how it feels to be beautiful/how it feels to be shipwrecked’. Original, arresting, often visceral images of this kind pervade the book: a sparrowhawk ‘waits like a gun’ in ‘Bird Feeders’, a mother ‘baits her hook/with lemons’ in ‘Another Conversation About Where I Should Live’. In ‘Song for Midsummer’ the speaker asks, ‘what shape/will the small cloud take next, do you think?/a door?/a suitcase?’ In Annette Iles’s well-crafted poems anything seems possible! There is so much to see, hear and smell here. It’s a superb collection of enthralling, relatable poetry, with an optimistic feel, that rewards repeated readings.
Visceral, beautifully textured poetry throbbing with energy and creative purpose. Hope is drawn to the dark heart of nature: the ‘bared bones’ of lost woods, beneath the ‘pinched face’ of an ‘unforgiving moon’ where hunters dine on carrion, ‘flesh clinging to their teeth’. While the language is dense with description, it never draws undue attention to itself, focusing on the tactile experience of life in sensuous detail. It’s a realm of compelling weirdness, of magic and mythology, of ‘faerie trees’ and witches: a surreal world where lovers become rats, ‘sharp teeth on my breast’. Particularly enjoyable were the poems that connect the self with the landscape, as in ‘The Letting Moon’, where the speaker’s ‘tides swell/and seep’, or ‘Old Midsummer ', where ‘Willow-skin touches water’. Some poems relocate us in a modern urban environment, as in ‘Birmingham Moon’, with its ‘secret alleys and the loosened stays of terraces’. The book sustains its force throughout and brings much pleasure to the reader.
Finding the Point Yet Again
Karen Little
Self Published
A solid, impactful, and often moving collection. The poems about childhood were especially enjoyable, particularly the 60s pop culture details (‘K-Tel greatest hits’ in ‘Dangerous Spirit’, for instance, and Troy Tempest in ‘Stingray’), but a sense of uncertainty and fear undermines any sense of nostalgia: rather it hints at darker themes of trauma, anxiety, and dysfunctional family dynamics (‘we weren’t allowed/to get ill’ as she says in ‘Chunky Soup’). The consistency of focus gives the book an integrated feel, which creates the impression that the author has given much thought to the arrangement of her poems. The effect is cumulative, and we get a developing sense of a lived life. The difficulties the speaker has navigating the world as a child in the first part of the book informs our assessment of her adult trauma in later poems like ‘He Promised’ (‘My psychosis was riddled with cliché’), ‘Certainty’ (‘I made the most of going mad’) and the darkly humorous poem that closes the collection: ‘Finding the Point Yet Again’ (‘Don’t tell my psychiatrist, but I binned the indifference tablets/a year ago’). Despite her allusion to cliche, Karen Little manages to avoid it by sticking to the details of her personal struggles. A candid and poignant book.
Umbellifire
Julie Sheridan
Drunk Muse Press
This is a great collection of reflective and intelligent poems. Sherifan has a stong and compelling voice. There’s a playfulness of language and an interesting mish-mash of lexicons with a great use of form. There are so many layers here. Standouts include ‘Coal’, the opening poem about childhood and the transient nature of life; ‘Grandmother’s Palindrome’, a gorgeous sonnet about the unacknowledged hardships of the past and the miracle of our ancestors’ endurance; and the weird and beautiful ‘An Emigrant Finds a Line of Pine Processionary Caterpillars’. The quality is high throughout, characterised by rich, textured language and unexpected perspectives. Some poems have a pleasing subversive energy too, offering an irreverent corrective to conventional ways of thinking, as with the sexual candour of ‘Fuck Buddy’ (‘I could smell you under my nails’), or in poems like ‘On Second Thoughts’, where she reminds us ‘That rings can be returned./That rings can be refused’, or ‘Love Birds’, where the caged creatures become anoblique metaphor for marriage: ‘squelching sound of vows, the wings of the wife/splaying to blue as if to an actual sky’. These are poems that beg to be read out loud.