Mali, Jonesey, Fara and Petey are reluctantly gathered in the library. They're not friends and they each have reasons they don't want to be there.
As the rain starts, they do not bond as a group. Mali does not engage, Jonesy takes offence, Petey ridicules the others, Fara is silent, and their teacher Ms Devine is distracted.
Outside, the bad weather steadily worsens. Soon they are trapped in the school, and pulling together may be the only way out when the storm comes.
Polly Ho-Yen used to be a primary school teacher in London and while she was teaching there she would get up very early in the morning to write stories. The first of those stories became her critically acclaimed debut novel Boy in the Tower, which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and FCBG Children’s Book Award. All four of her middle-grade novels – including Fly Me Home, Where Monster’s Lie and How I Saved the World in a Week – have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Polly’s previous younger fiction novel, The Boy Who Grew a Tree was shortlisted for the Teach Primary 2022 book awards, and featured in the 2023 Read for Empathy collection (primary). The book is also currently shortlisted for the inaugural The Week Junior Book Awards, in the Younger Fiction category.
She lives in Bristol with her husband and daughter.
