Indigo Donut by Patrice Lawrence
Hodder £7.99, Age 14+
Patrice Lawrence, whose last novel, Orangeboy, won two prizes for young adult fiction, has written another engaging drama in this story of a girl who is found, at the age of four, outside a bedroom door, on the other side of which her father has just smothered her mother. Thirteen years and many foster homes and school exclusions later, Indigo is still struggling with the legacy of that horror, and the fear of the anger she thinks she has inherited from her dad.
But Bailey, with the orange afro, sees beyond the sensational history of the new classmate who thinks she has a hole at her centre, like a doughnut. This passionate love story with a soundtrack of Blondie and Muse, a mystery at its core, convincing dialogue and a contemporary London setting, is observant about family, motherhood, social divisions and sexuality.
Read an extract on The Sunday Times website
WATCH OUT FOR
Moon Juice by Kate Wakeling illus Elina Braslina
Emma Press £8.50, Age 8+
This clever, funny, inspiring poetry collection, which has just won the CLiPPA, is a children’s debut by a poet for adults, full of rich ideas and roll-round-the-tongue sounds that demand to be read aloud.