"An authentic, must-read collection and a voice we seldom hear."
November 2024 Debut of the Month
Shortlisted for the 2024 CLiPPA, the children’s poetry award, And I Climbed, And I Climbed is a book you won’t have read before.
Like poet Stephen Lightbown, its speaker, eight-year-old Cosmo has been left paralysed following an accident – in Cosmo’s case, a fall from a tree – and uses a wheelchair to move around. In poems that are direct and immediate, he describes his thoughts and feelings about what he’s going through. Many of them are addressed to the tree, others describe moments with his family, other people’s reactions, his own rage and frustration at what’s happened.
There’s a lot of anger but surprising joy too, for example, when he describes the freedom that surfing brings and the exhilaration of wheelchair dancing. Without a trace of sentimentality, it makes for a page turning collection, addressing complex emotional issues with a striking simplicity and clarity.
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