A British Childhood

'No home, no school, and especially no library should be without this story and this book' – Michael Morpurgo

'Original, surprising and compassionate without being earnest . . . Frank's book left me enraged, informed and moved' – Sathnam Sanghera

'Lively and frequently moving . . . A British Childhood makes a stirring case for children as central to any national story' – The Times

During his time as Children’s Laureate, the bestselling author Frank Cottrell-Boyce travelled the country, meeting children and young people where they were: in schools and libraries, in young offenders’ institutions and prisons, many of them living in extremely precarious conditions.

As he met these children, he began to reflect on stories from his own childhood and on children’s lives in Britain during his lifetime – the imaginative connections we make and the sense of community that are so vital to our future adult selves.

A British Childhood tells the story of what it means to be young in modern Britain. It is at once a searing condemnation of our failure to look after the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, and a call to arms to all of us to protect the innocence, and the imagination, of childhood.

'Especially powerful on poverty, reading and imagination' – The i

'This clarion call about the loss of delight and safety in children’s lives is also a reminder of the sheer magic of reading' – The Guardian