Kiran Millwood Hargrave - Author

The Island at the End of Everything

Shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards 2017, Costa Children's Book Award Longlisted for the UKLA 2018 Book Award In a nutshell: beautifully told story of courage and hope and an unforgettable setting Kiran Millwood Hargrave follows up her award-winning debut The Girl of Ink and Stars with a story set in the real world, though one still filled with a sense of wonder and the extraordinary. Set in the Philippines at the beginning of the last century it tells the story of a girl forcibly removed from her mother, as many were, because her mother has leprosy, or as those with the disease preferred, is touched. With the help of her friends Ami makes her way back to her mother and it’s a story of love, courage and hope, all of these symbolised by the butterflies that fill the pages and that are so important to the story. It’s passionately told, full of memorable scenes and characters, and the writing is beautiful.  ~ Andrea Reece The Costa Judges say: ‘Entirely original with not a word out of place – as vivid and beautiful as the butterflies themselves.’ A message from the author:    ‘At a time when the world seems to be moving deeper towards intolerance, the message that we should be together but not the same, was at the forefront of my mind when writing this book. It’s easy to label people, and labelling means reducing them to one attribute, which in turn makes it easier to dismiss, dehumanise, and persecute. In The Island at the End of Everything, it is down to Ami, and her friend Mari, to find a way home in a society that tells them they are only children, only girls, and so are not in control of their own lives. But of course, this is far from the truth.’