October, October by Katya Balen and Angela Harding

October and her dad live in the woods. They sleep in the house Dad built for them and eat the food they grow in the vegetable patches. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They read the books they buy in town again and again until the pages are soft and yellow - until next year's town visit. They live in the woods and they are wild.

And that's the way it is.

Until the year October turns eleven. That's the year October rescues a baby owl. It's the year Dad falls out of the biggest tree in their woods. The year the woman who calls herself October's mother comes back. The year everything changes.

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I cried a lot. Be warned, if you are the type who cries at books.

This is an amazing book. The tone is a little like Room, although October turns eleven early in this book and Jack was five. But there's the same precocious child leaving a small world for a bigger one idea (and like Jack, October throws a couple of tantrums.) I cried during Room, I should have known I'd cry at this one.

I loved this. I loved discovering the world alongside October, watching as she slowly allows herself to trust people. My heart broke with hers during the bit that you know if you've read it and I won't spoil if you haven't, and I rejoiced with her during her triumphs. It's an absolutely fabulous book, and I think it would work really well as a class novel; there are a LOT of avenues that could be explored after reading.

The illustrations are gorgeous, too. Stig is beautiful in these pictures. And that cover!

I loved this. I can't say anything else, but I'll keep saying that.

October, October publishes on the 17th September, 2020.