PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Katya Balen is an award-winning author of books for children. Katya's debut novel, The Space We’re In, was published in 2019 and was highly commended for the Branford Boase Award. Her second, October, October, won the Yoto Carnegie Medal. Her third novel, The Light in Everything, was published in 2022. When she’s not writing books, Katya likes to scroll through dog-rescue websites, bake, and attempt to keep all her house plants alive. She lives in London with her partner and their dogs Raffi and Mouse. @katyabalen
Quite simply one of the most beautiful books I've ever read * Kiran Millwood Hargrave on October, October * Katya Balen’s October, October is a very special new addition to the shelf and deserves classic status * Times Children's Book of the Week on October, October * It's EXQUISITE. Read it. Wild yourself. Open your heart to it. Written with the pen of a poet and the soul of Mother Earth. Glorious. It's like nothing else I've ever read. * Liz Hyder, award-winning author of Bearmouth on October, October * I love Katya Balen’s clear-eyed, poetic writing style, first encountered in The Space We’re In and October, October. She has a special ability to dig deep into the emotional lives of the children she writes about; she is always privy to their darkest thoughts, always on their side. Original, compulsive, uplifting: this is another triumph for Balen. * The Times Children's Book of the Week on The Light in Everything * I loved this book. The deftness with which Katya creates such passionate, funny, broken, brave characters. What an achievement. Katya Balen can break your heart and make you snort with laughter in the same sentence * Natasha Farrant on The Light in Everything *
