A Glasshouse of Stars: Winner of the CBCA Book of the Year Younger Readers 2022

Description

An exquisite, heartbreakingly beautiful gem of a novel for anyone who loved Wonder, Lenny's Book of Everything, A Monster Calls or When You Reach Me. Winner of the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year - Younger Readers 2022 Meixing Lim and her family have arrived at the New House in the New Land. Everything is vast and unknown to Meixing - including the house she names Big Scary. She is embarrassed by her second-hand shoes, has trouble understanding the language at school, and is finding it hard to make friends. Meixing's only solace is a glasshouse in the garden, which inexplicably holds the sun and the moon and the secrets of her memory and imagination. When her fragile universe is rocked by tragedy, it will take all of Meixing's bravery to find her place of belonging in this new world. 'Heart-twisting and hopeful, bursting with big feelings and gentle magic. This is a special book from a powerful, compassionate new voice in children's literature, destined to be read and loved for generations and held close in many hearts (including mine).' - Jessica Townsend, New York Times bestselling author of the Nevermoor series

Shirley Marr is a first-generation Chinese Australian living in Perth and an author of young adult and children's fiction, including YA novels Fury and Preloved, and children's novels Little Jiang, A Glasshouse of Stars and All Four Quarters of the Moon. She describes herself as having a Western mind and an Eastern heart. She likes to write in the space in the middle where they both collide, basing her stories on her own personal experiences of migration and growing up in Australia, along with the folk and fairy tales from her mother. Arriving in mainland Australia from Christmas Island as a seven-year-old in the 1980s and experiencing the good, the bad and the wonder that comes with culture shock, Shirley has been in love with reading and writing from that early age. Shirley is a universe full of stars and stories and hopes to share the many other novels that she has inside her.