The Home Child

''A haunting, deeply compelling narrative, that holds the reader tight to the animal anchor of the natural world, and speaks in the unique idiolect of its own genealogy'' Andrew McMillan
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''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.