LoveReading4Kids Says
UKLA Longlist Book Awards - 2019 | Shortlisted for the Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award 2018
This second solo collection from Joseph Coelho, Overheard in a Tower Block, explores further some of the themes from Werewolf Club Rules (which won the CLiPPA in 2015). More suited to an older reader than that first collection, this is an extraordinarily powerful and moving book. Each poem offers us glimpses into the life of the main character as he grows, over the course of the collection, from young boy through adolescence to adulthood. The ingenious threading of fantasy, story, myth and magic throughout the poems only illuminates further the challenges and hardships of this young man’s life, but ultimately concludes in moments of optimism, joy and possibility.
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Joseph Coelho Press Reviews
An exciting and edgy collection - contemporary poems of family, friendship and school laced with myth and magic. -- Fiona Noble The Bookseller
So rich...so many lines that make you pause and stop...so powerful...took my breath away. Down the Rabbit Hole
Joseph's verses, illustrated beautifully by Kate Milner, really capture how your childhood imagination adapts and fits itself around your (sometimes grim) surroundings. A superb slice of urban life, depicted from many different points of view. Read It, Daddy
Award-winning poet Joseph Coelho's astonishing new collection is a powerful and moving poetic narrative about growing up in the city, excellently set off by Kate Milner's black and white drawings which capture the spirit of the poetry. Parents in Touch
Ingenious...Kate Milner's extraordinary line drawings express the underlying strangeness. Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week
Recounting the childhood of a child living in a city tower block, many of these poems are sad or angry and bristle with an edginess that young teens may find refreshing when compared to other poetry aimed at them. The content is current, personal, moving and needs saying. Book Trust, Best Books for August
Joseph Coelho brings the city to life through the eyes of a child in his moving collection of poems. The poems deal sensitively with a range of themes, from broken families and bullying to the power of stories to take you beyond the city to another world. An accessible and relevant book of poems to accompany children as they grow up. Scotsman
Every poem in this anthology gives the reader pause for thought: whether it's an idea to contemplate; an image that lingers or word play that delights, Coelho's touch is totally assured. Reading Zone 5 star review
Growing up on an urban estate in a tower block is not a comfortable experience. Joseph Coelho's poems are not comfortable. They are sharp, disconcerting, intelligent. They are also quite often humorous. They pinpoint experiences, emotions, the immediate, as he charts living in this world. Running through all the poems is a young boy's sense of dislocation in a fractured family. There are recollections of school, of friendships, of holidays, of a first kiss. These are poems to explore, to discover and to savour because they will not always reveal their secrets immediately - but they are well worth it. The experience is enhanced by Kate Milner's clever vignettes that mirror the awkwardness, the curiosity and vigour of the boy. Congratulations to Otter-Barry Books for bringing us this collection. Books for Keeps, Editor's Choice & 5 Star Review
A wonderful collection of poems. Carousel
Children's poetry is booming and Joseph Coelho's Overheard in a Tower Block skilfully describes deeply felt experiences and personal observations so that we can all share the emotions. Books for Keeps, Book of the Year
Finally, something slightly different. I think publishers and bookshops are missing a trick with poetry. They seem to stock poetry collections for younger children and adult poetry from the historical to the contemporary. Where is the poetry for young adults? Beyond the bookshops, there is a dynamic and diverse spoken word scene, young people articulating their lives and experiences through rhythm, rhyme, lyricism. These are poems about childhood belonging, separated families and the stories we build when there are gaps we can't know. My teenage daughter and I have read them together. Patrice Lawrence's Top 5 Young Adult Reads of 2017 Waterstones
About Joseph Coelho
Joseph Coelho is the Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2022-2024, and an award-winning poet, playwright and writer. His first poetry collection, Werewolf Club Rules!, won the CLPE Children's Poetry Award in 2015, and he has been writing and performing ever since. His picture books include If All the World Were... illustrated by Allison Colpoys and Luna Loves Library Day illustrated by Fiona Lumbers. His poetry books for children include Overheard in a Tower Block illustrated by Kate Milner and A Year of Nature Poems illustrated by Kelly Louise Judd.
His ‘Story told in poems’, for age 12+, The Girl Who Became A Tree, was shortlisted for The 2021 Carnegie Medal and received a special mention from the Bologna Ragazzi Award 2021. His YA verse novel, The Boy Lost in the Maze, is longlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Award for Writing 2024, has been chosen as an outstanding international book for The White Ravens collection 2023 and has also been nominated as an IBBY Honour Book for 2024.
He has written plays for the Polka Theatre, the Lyric, Hammersmith, and the Unicorn Theatre. He creates dynamic poetry theatre pieces for young people that he tours nationally. He also performs with the UK's top performance poetry organisation, Apples and Snakes, visiting venues across the UK. Joseph has been a guest poet in Cbeebies' Rhyme Rocket.
Originally from London, he now lives by the sea in Kent.
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