Sophie Kirtley
Sophie Kirtley is a prize-winning poet and children’s author. Her best-selling debut novel, The Wild Way Home, was published by Bloomsbury in 2020; it was Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month and was shortlisted for the Joan Aiken Future Classics Prize. Sophie's second book, The Way to Impossible Island, was selected as one of the Best Children’s Paperbacks of 2021 by Waterstones and several national newspapers. Her poetry for children and for adults has been widely published in journals and anthologies. Sophie is currently working on a contemporary middle grade novel to be published by Bloomsbury in autumn 2024.
Sophie grew up in Northern Ireland where she spent her childhood climbing on hay bales, rolling down sand dunes and leaping the raw Atlantic waves. Nowadays she lives in Wiltshire with her husband, three children and their mini-menagerie of pets and wild things. Sophie loves reading, writing and inspiring others to be creative too.
You can follow Sophie on Twitter and Instagram, and also via her website.
The Wild Way Home
When Charlie's longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie's world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It's become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins. For Charlie has unwittingly fled into the Stone Age, with no way to help the boy or return to the present day. Or is there?
What follows is a wild, big-hearted adventure as Charlie and the Stone Age boy set out together to find what they have lost – their courage, their hope, their family and their way home.
| Territory | Publisher/Agent |
|---|---|
| World | Bloomsbury |
| Russia | Polyandria |
| South Korea | WeNeedABook |
| Ukraine | Ranok |
The Way To Impossible Island
Born with a serious heart condition, Dara has been waiting for his Big Operation forever, and this summer it's finally going to happen. The moment his heart is fixed he'll row out to the island in the bay all by himself just like he's always dreamed. But when his op is postponed, Dara snaps. When will he get to live his real life? Maybe the adventures he dreams of are just silly fantasies.
And then he finds a girl hiding in the boat shed. She wears animal skins. She has a real live pet wolf. She is, simply, impossible. Could Mothgirl really be from the Stone Age? And what is she seeking on Lathrin Island? As Dara and Mothgirl set out on a wild, windswept sea journey Dara begins to realise that when you stop worrying about what's impossible, you can do anything.
A brave, life-affirming middle-grade timeslip adventure about finding your family and finding yourself, from the author of The Wild Way Home.
| Territory | Publisher/Agent |
|---|---|
| World | Bloomsbury |
| Russia | Polyandria |
| South Korea | WeNeedABook |
| Ukraine | Ranok |