"This book is much like the author - warm, honest, open, encouraging. I loved it and want to buy a copy for every creative teenager I know." Louise O'NeillA guide for using creative writing to speak your own truth.You are enough. You are interesting. Tell your story. Celebrated writer Laura Dockrill knows that the best writing comes when you are speaking your own truth, with your own voice. Expressing yourself honestly is a powerful way to know yourself and grow to celebrate the exciting, creative, unique person you are. When you are a teenager, everything feels different. How are you supposed to figure out who you are when it seems like teachers, parents, friends, the rest of the world, are all asking you to be something else? It can be overwhelming but the best way to steer yourself through this crazy, brilliant time is to hold onto your sense of you. Laura's stress-free invitations to creative writing encourage you to...

Blossom has grown up surrounded by the beautiful plants and flowers from her family's market stall. The stall was started by her grandparents, Tutu and Pops, and passed on to Blossom's parents after their death. It's a magical place where customers come to find flowers for all occasions: from celebrating love to offering comfort in times of sorrow. But now the stall is at risk, with tension rising as Blossom's parents argue about the future. Can Blossom call on the lessons she learned from Tutu and find a way to cope with the dramatic changes that are happening around her. Can she save the flower stall? Acclaimed author Laura Dockrill sows seeds of hope and community at the flower market in this heartfelt, lyrical tale of family life and change. This book features a dyslexia-friendly layout and font, and illustrations throughout so that even more readers can enjoy it.  

The heartwarming new novel from the sparkling Laura Dockrill, introducing Bluebelle, and her moving, hilarious take on food, body image and how we look after ourselves and others.It's a food diary. I have to tell the truth. That's the point.Bluebelle, aka BB, aka Big Bones - is a sixteen-year-old girl encouraged to tackle her weight even though she's perfectly happy, thank you, and getting on with her life and in love with food. Then a tragedy in the family forces BB to find a new relationship with her body and herself. . .Tuck in for best mates, belly laughs, boys and the best Bakewell tart.——-Love for BIG BONES'Big Bones is the book I wish I'd had as a teenager and Bluebelle is a friend I wish I had today. Laura has written a beautiful love letter to some of the most important things in life: friends, family and food.' Linsdey...

Sequin's mum is a talented seamstress and their little flat is overflowing with beautiful silks, fabrics, buttons and beads. It's a sparkling sanctuary, like a princess's wardrobe. While Mum works at her sewing machine late into the night, Sequin takes care of her baby brother, Stitch, and dreams of a place in the spotlight for her brilliant mum. But when tragedy strikes, their shimmering world disintegrates and Sequin is forced to confront the biggest loss of all ... Acclaimed creator Laura Dockrill sews together family, imagination and heart in this lyrical and completely unique Barrington Stoke debut. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant or dyslexic readers aged 8+

This honest, laugh-out-loud novel brimming with body positivity, bite-sized nuggets of feminism, and commentary on eating will have readers rooting for sixteen-year-old BB as she navigates her world while maintaining her plucky zest for life even in the most trying of times.It's a food diary. I have to tell the truth. That's the point.Sixteen-year-old Bluebelle, also known as BB or Big Bones, lives her life unapologetically. She loves life! She loves food!When BB has a worse-than-usual asthma attack, her mom insists she go to the doctor. There, she is told that she is overweight (no surprise) and prediabetic (big surprise) and must lose weight, move more, and keep a food diary. To get out of this immediate health crisis, she agrees to make an effort.Then a tragedy occurs in the family, and things get seriously complicated. Suddenly, losing weight and moving more are the least of her worries. As for the food diary, though, BB doesn't just document what...

Colourful, raw, brave, rich and fantastical - this mermaid tale is not for the faint-hearted. Looking after a naked girl he found washed up under Hastings pier isn't exactly how Rory had imagined spending his sixteenth birthday. But more surprising than finding her in the first place is discovering where she has come from. Lorali is running not just from the sea, not just from her position as princess, but her entire destiny. Lorali has rejected life as a mermaid, and become human. But along with Lorali's arrival, and the freak weather suddenly battering the coast, more strange visitors begin appearing in Rory's bemused Sussex town. With beautifully coiffed hair, sharp-collared shirts and a pirate ship shaped like a Tudor house, the Abelgare boys are a mystery all of their own. What are they really up to? Can Rory protect Lorali? And who from? And where does she really belong, anyway?

Ten-year-old Darcy sees the extraordinary in the everyday and the wonder in the world around her. This third book sees Darcy encounter extra-large-amounts of drama - mice have invaded her house, which means the family must get a cat. Cue a mega-meltdown in a pet shop and then the arrival of Pork, an angry dumpling of a cat who terrifies Lamb-Beth. And while chaos rules at home, Will's long-lost dad has turned-up and taken him out of school. Who will Darcy be friends with now? Must she hang-out with school secretary Mavis EVERY DAY FOR ALL ETERNITY?Joyous drawings, colourful characters and a high-energy voice - the Darcy Burdock books are packed with personality from start to finish.

Roald Dahl and Quention Blake meets Tim Burton in sassy poet Laura Dockrill?s edgy and hilarious tale You might have known somebody like Ugly Shy Girl once ?You might have seen her bumping into lamp-posts and tripping over her bag.She wears a denim skirt down to her ankles and a second-hand Naf Naf jacket.Her hair hangs down in front of her face and her nails are bitten and sore.She is always doing or saying completely the wrong thing. This itwisted tale is about the struggle of growing up in a place where you don?t belong, surrounded by people you hate ?and how delicious getting your own back can be.

Ten-year-old Darcy Burdock is one of life's noticers. She sees the extraordinary in the everyday, and the wonder in the world around her.In Darcy's fifth story, it's the summer holidays and Darcy is not impressed that her family haven't gone to Hawaii like she wanted. Her best friend Will has abandoned her. Worst of all, Darcy has to pack up all her things ready for moving house.But Darcy is not going to throw a temper tantrum, as much as she wants to, because she's set herself the hardest challenge of her whole entire life: for the next six weeks, Darcy is not going to be dramatic. AT ALL!

Laura Dockrill makes a dramatic return to the sea set in the same world as the sparkling and magnetic mermaid story, Lorali.It has been two years since Rory drowned, and Lorali is in Hastings, living the quiet life of a normal teenage girl. But her safe life on land won't last for long. Life in The Whirl has become a hotbed of underwater politics and as the council jostles to oust the king, one Mer in particular has her eye on Lorali as the key to her own rise to power.Meanwhile, Aurabel, a lowly Mer from the wrong side of the trench, is attacked by sea beasts and left for dead - and without a tail. Raging with righteous anger, she rebuilds herself a mechanical tail and reinvents herself as a fearless steampunk Mer seeking revenge. But she never expected the most important job that was about to drop into her lap.

Ten-year-old Darcy sees the extraordinary in the everyday and the wonder in the world around her. This second book sees Darcy move-up to Big School - and all of a sudden EVERYTHING changes. Her best friend Will isn't sure he should talk to girls anymore, her new teacher may in actual fact be a cauldron-bubbling witch and, horror of horrors, her precious pet Lamb-Beth goes missing. Can Darcy face these challenges head-on, armed only with her curious, whip-smart mind and eye for a story? Joyous drawings, colourful characters and a high-energy voice - the Darcy Burdock books are packed with personality from start to finish.