by Tom Becker
Non Pratt is author of the acclaimed Trouble, which was shortlisted for The Bookseller YA Book Prize and the Branford Boase Award, and Remix. After graduating from Trinity College Cambridge, she became a book editor at Usborne and now writes full-time.
Marcus Sedgwick won the Branford Boase Award in 2001 with his debut novel, Floodland. In 2007 My Swordhand Is Singing won the Booktrust Teenage Prize and in 2011 Lunatics and Luck won a Blue Peter Book Award. Marcus has been shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal six times.
Lisa Williamson won the Best Older Fiction category of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2016 with her debut novel, The Art of Being Normal. It was also shortlisted for The Bookseller YA Book Prize and the Brandford Boase Award and was the bestselling YA hardback debut of 2015.
Benjamin Zephaniah is an internationally renowned performance poet and acclaimed author of bestselling YA novels Face, Gangsta Rap, Teacher’s Dead, Refugee Boy and Terror Kid. He has inspired a generation of rappers and performance poets and has been awarded sixteen honorary doctorates in recognition of his work.
About the Illustrator
William Grill is a freelance author/illustrator based in London. He has worked for a variety of clients such as The New York Times, Radley, Harrods and Shelter. His debut book Shackleton’s Journey won the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal and has been translated into over fourteen languages.
“If you can’t do away with all your prejudices at Christmas, if you cannot suspend your disbelief, and you can’t work together for something like homelessness, then there’s not much chance for society.” – Crisis founder Bill Shearman
Christmas can be an incredibly difficult time of year for a person cut off from family and home. One in four homeless people spends Christmas alone.
Crisis at Christmas offers support, companionship and vital services and the chance for homeless people to take up the life-changing opportunities on offer all year round at centres run by Crisis across the country.
In 2015 volunteers in London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Coventry donated their time to cut hair, lead karaoke sessions, scrub potatoes, perform medical examinations or just have a cup of tea and a chat. Dentists, counsellors, podiatrists and massage therapists all lent their skills to help make homeless guests feel special.
Things have come a long way since Crisis was founded in December 1967, when prospective Conservative Party candidate Bill Shearman joined forces with a network of homelessness service providers and social activists working to raise awareness of homelessness and destitution in East London.
Backed by the groundswell of public support following the BBC film Cathy Come Home, Shearman enlisted Shadow Chancellor Iain Macleod to launch an awareness raising appeal, leading to a candlelit vigil in Hyde Park attended by 3,000 people. By 1971, a small team of volunteers began to provide food and shelter for homeless people at the first ‘Open Christmas’ in an East London church.
In the intervening years the event grew in scale and ambition. Crisis at Christmas is now run by the national homelessness charity Crisis, which offers year-round services and campaigns to help end homelessness in the UK.
Last year over 4,000 people came to Crisis at Christmas, looked after by 10,000 volunteers. Tens of thousands more donated money and materials to help make the event happen.
By buying this book, you too are helping the homeless people who come to Crisis this Christmas. You are responding to the challenge laid out by Bill Shearman. You are proof that there is hope for society.
To donate, volunteer or campaign for Crisis, visit www.crisis.org.uk
Registered Charity Numbers:
E&W1082947, SC040094.
The YA Book Prize is the only book prize for YA fiction written by authors based in the UK and Ireland. Launched by The Bookseller magazine in 2014, the prize was created to promote the fantastic books for teenagers and young adults that are being published today.
The prize was a huge hit with publishers and readers alike, and was in 2016 awarded to One by Sarah Crossan, a free verse novel about conjoined twins Tippi and Grace, at the Hay Festival.
More information is available online at:
thebookseller.com/ya-book-prize/2016
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of the Little Tiger Group
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road, London SW6 6AW
First published as an eBook by Stripes Publishing in 2016
‘Home and Away’ copyright © 2016 by Benjamin Zephaniah
‘Ghosts of Christmas Past’ copyright © 2016 by Non Pratt
‘If Only in My Dreams’ copyright © 2016 by Marcus Sedgwick
‘Family You Choose’ copyright © 2016 by Cat Clarke
‘The Associates’ copyright © 2016 by Kevin Brooks
‘The Afterschool Club’ copyright © 2016 by Holly Bourne
‘Homo for Christmas’ copyright © 2016 by Juno Dawson
‘Amir and George’ copyright © 2016 by Sita Brahmachari
‘The Letter’ copyright © 2016 by Tracy Darnton
‘Claws’ copyright © 2016 by Tom Becker
‘Christmas, Take Two’ copyright © 2016 by Katy Cannon
‘When Daddy Comes Home’ copyright © 2016 by Melvin Burgess
‘The Bluebird’ copyright © 2016 by Julie Mayhew
‘Routes and Wings’ copyright © 2016 by Lisa Williamson
Cover illustration copyright © William Grill, 2016
eISBN: 978-1-84715-819-2
The rights of Tom Becker, Holly Bourne, Sita Brahmachari, Kevin Brooks, Melvin Burgess, Katy Cannon, Cat Clarke, Tracy Darnton, Juno Dawson, Julie Mayhew, Non Pratt, Marcus Sedgwick, Lisa Williamson and Benjamin Zephaniah to be identified as the authors and William Grill as the illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
littletiger.co.uk