Sarah Crossan writes beautifully and lyrically about truth, love, families and friendships. Often picking seemingly bleak and difficult subjects to base her stories around she manages, through her signature skilful verse to give her characters humanity, depth and humour. Her latest novel, Toffee, is another insightful and compassionate poetical piece and is our Book of the Month.

Sarah Crossan launched into the children’s book world with a splash with her stunning and exceptional debut novel, The Weight of Water. Written in verse style it was quite unlike anything else at the time and she has led the field in a fresh and interesting area of YA literature. The Weight of Water is a vivid and sometimes distressing account of a refugee family, told though the eyes of a 12 year old girl. Sarah was shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal for The Weight of Water and her following novel, Apple and Rain was similarly lauded finding her shortlisted once more for the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal. Then came One, an astonishing piece of writing, full of emotion, empathy and humour which told the story of conjoined twins, Grace and Tippi and their heartfelt journey to independence. It was Julia Eccleshare's Pick of the Year for LoverReading4Kids in 2015 and she wasn't the only one to love it. It also won the Children's Book of the Year, the Bookseller's Prize for YA fiction and in 2016 it deservedly won the CILIP Carnegie Medal.

Moonrise followed. Shortlisted for numerous awards, one of our Editorial Experts Joanne Owen wrote "A book to break your heart, quicken your blood and stir your soul by one of the most outstandingly distinctive writers to have emerged in a long, long time."  

Sarah's latest novel is Toffee and again our expert Joanne Owen’s review is full of praise; "Another insightful and compassionate free verse novel from the queen of this increasingly admired form, this time exploring the transformative relationship between an abused runaway teenager and an elderly lady with dementia."

This year Sarah is up for a record-breaking third win in the UKLA Awards with Moonrise shortlisted, having won last year for We Come Apart and in 2013 for her debut Weight of Water. Sarah joined forces with Brian Conaghan (a fellow award-winning YA writer) to pen We Come Apart, with Sarah and Brian taking the voices of Jess and Nicu who meet on a young offenders programme, a contemporary story of star-cross'd lovers. Good luck Sarah - the winner will be announced in July this year and you can read more about the UKLA 2019 Awards here.

Sarah is the current Laureate na nÓg (Ireland’s Children’s Literature Laureate). Her theme as Laureate is #WeAreThePoets, a two-year project inspiring young people to express themselves through poetry and verse. You can view a video on her author page as she discusses the honour of the appointment and her plans to bring poetry to a wider youth audience.

Scroll on to find Sarah Crossan's books, all with expert reviews and extracts. In addition, our LoveReading4Kids Reader Review panel have been lucky enough to read Apple and Rain, One, Moonrise and We Come Apart - the reviews are unanimously excellent!

Sarah's debut novel, The Weight of Water, reissued in May 19 and We Come Apart, her collaboration with Brian Conaghan both spotlight the refugee crisis. If you are interested in this issue we have further recommended reads in our feature on National Refugee Week.