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The Home Child

The Home Child

from the Forward Prize-winning author of Black Country

Summary

Inspired by a true story, a beautiful novel-in-verse about a child far from home. From award-winning poet Liz Berry.

'A profound act of witness to a long injustice, and a beautifully crafted conjuring of a life lived as truly as possible' Guardian 'Book of the Day'
'Ground-breaking' Benjamin Zephaniah
'Exquisite' Hannah Lowe
, author of The Kids

'Home's not a place, you must believe this,
but one who names you and means beloved.'

In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia. She will never return to Britain or see her family again. She is a Home Child, one of thousands of British children sent to Canada to work as indentured farm labourers and domestic servants.

In Nova Scotia, Eliza's world becomes a place where ordinary things are transfigured into treasures - a red ribbon, the feel of a foal's mane, the sound of her name on someone else's lips. With nothing to call her own, the wild beauty of Cape Breton is the only solace Eliza has - until another Home Child, a boy, comes to the farm and changes everything.

Inspired by the true story of Liz Berry's great aunt, this spellbinding novel in verse is an exquisite portrait of a girl far from home.

'Vivid, compassionate and makes Eliza Showell's voice heard at last' Financial Times *Best Poetry Books of summer 2023*

'
A haunting, deeply compelling narrative' Andrew McMillan, author of physical

'Only Liz Berry could write such raw and staggeringly beautiful poems' Fiona Benson, author of Vertigo & Ghost

Reviews

  • One of the outstanding books of this year... Although this is a historical tale its resonance is timeless
    Sunday Times

About the author

Liz Berry

Liz Berry was born in the Black Country and now lives in Birmingham. Her debut collection, Black Country, 'a sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands' (Guardian), won a Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her pamphlet The Republic of Motherhood was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and the title poem won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2018. In The Home Child, a novel in verse, she reimagines the story of her great-aunt Eliza Showell, one of the many children forcibly emigrated to Canada as part of the British Child Migrant schemes.
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