Finding A Voice Friendship is a Two-Way Street ...

Shortlisted for the Bookseller YA Prize 2015!

Jo can’t tell anyone how hard it is living with her mentally ill mother. Chris literally has no way to speak at all. Together, can they finally find their voices?

‘One, two, three, four. I started counting the steps as soon as my feet left the drive – each step took me further from my house, where I couldn’t control the chaos …’

Jo’s got used to keeping her head down and getting on with things. Between looking after her mother and avoiding the mean kids at school, she’s never had much time to think about what she wants – and it wouldn’t occur to her to ask for help. She has to be the strong one, always.

When she meets Christopher she wants to help make his life better and will go to dramatic lengths to do so. But she finds out that friendship is a two-way street …

A moving and compelling story of friendship against the odds.

Shortlisted for the Bookseller YA Prize 2015!

Jo could never have guessed that the friendship she so desperately craves would come in the shape of a severely disabled boy. He can’t even speak. Maybe it is because he can’t speak that she finds herself telling him how difficult it is living with her eccentric, mentally fragile mother.

Behind Chris’ lopsided grin and gigantic blue wheelchair is a real person — with a sense of humour, a tremendous stubborn streak and a secret he has kept from everyone.

For a while it seems life may actually get better. But as Jo finds out just how terrible life is for Chris, and as her own life spirals out of control, she becomes desperate to change things for both of them. In a dramatic turn of events, Jo makes a decision that could end in tragedy.

This is the story of how an unusual friendship unlocks the words that neither knew they had.