Description
From award-winning poet Liz Berry.
‘Home’s not a place, you must believe this, but one who names you and means beloved.’
In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia.
She will never return to Britain or see her family again.
She is a Home Child, one of thousands of British children sent to Canada to work as indentured farm labourers and domestic servants.
In Nova Scotia, Eliza’s world becomes a place where ordinary things are transfigured into treasures – a red ribbon, the feel of a foal’s mane, the sound of her name on someone else’s lips.
With nothing to call her own, the wild beauty of Cape Breton is the only solace Eliza has – until another Home Child, a boy, comes to the farm and changes everything.
Inspired by the true story of Liz Berry’s great aunt, this spellbinding novel in verse is an exquisite portrait of a girl far from home.
‘A haunting, deeply compelling narrative’ – Andrew McMillan
‘Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems’ – Fiona Benson
‘A profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life lived as truly as possible’ – Guardian
‘Ground-breaking’ – Benjamin Zephaniah
‘Exquisite’ – Hannah Lowe
