The Light in Everything: Shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal 2023

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My favourite part of the story is when they all come together as a community to make paper cranes. It is a Japanese belief that you can make a wish on a thousand paper cranes. They make a wish that the baby will survive.

Katya Balen is an award-winning author of books for children. Katya's debut novel, The Space We’re In, was published in 2019 and was highly commended for the Branford Boase Award. Her second, October, October, won the Yoto Carnegie Medal. Her third novel, The Light in Everything, was published in 2022. I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. Some last forever when you never expected them to,… Timid Tom lives with his Mum. It’s two years since his Dad left, but he is still afraid of the dark. This sensitive, heartbreaking story boasts a wonderful narrative voice and secret codes that add another layer of intrigue - Guardian A wish from all of us and for one of us. A wish that will wash away my wavewish and start something new and brilliant.

Author Guy Bass introduces SCRAP, about one robot who tried to protect the humans on his planet against an army of robots. Now the humans need his... I like the silence we’re sharing. I feel like something has moved between us. Like the tide is pulling and pushing us all the time but for now everything is flat and calm.”

When Tom’s Mum becomes pregnant, they all move in together in a small house and await the baby’s arrival. Neither Zofia or Tom are happy with the situation and are not looking forward to the baby being born…until something horrible happens that changes everything. October has a happy life living with her dad in the forest - but when Dad gets injured in an accident, she's forced to go and live with her estranged mum in the city, where nothing is natural and everything feels new and frightening. Can October let her mum into her heart?Katya Balen on Foxlight “I really think children have this incredible and special bond with the natural world” Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments

Tom and Zofia both wish the stupid baby had never happened. But then Tom's mum gets ill, and it begins to look horribly like their wish might come true ...It's really quite a beautiful story about connecting, finding kinship and peace together, and did bring a tear to my eye a few times. Tom couldn’t be more different. Having escaped from domestic violence, Tom and his mum live in a little flat in the city. Tom is frightened, quiet and timid, finding comfort in folding paper into beautiful birds and filling his room with lights to keep out the dark. Beautifully written with imagery so immersive, it’s as if the sea is a carefully crafted protagonist in itself. Tom is still scared, and he doesn't like it when he realises Zofia has been in his room but he keeps that quiet. Then things take a turn for the worse, only for Tom and Zofia to find out more about each other. Is Zofia as brave as she makes out or could it be that she's as scared as Tom?

KATYA: It was absolutely incredible – the Carnegie is every children’s writer’s dream. But to have the people I write for choose my book as their winner too – well, that’s beyond brilliant. I’m just honoured and amazed and grateful.In The Light in Everything, the author of the award-winning October, October has crafted another superb middle-grade novel. It uses a dual narrative structure to explore relationships between step-siblings a complex blended family. Zophia is spirited and angry; she lost her mother in infancy and treasures her relationship with her father. Tom is timid and vulnerable, with deep-rooted trauma stemming from an abusive father. Their parents have fallen in love – and Zophia and Tom hate each other. A very contemporary plotline forms the basis of a two-narrator story, with the 'lump in your throat' writing that doesn't happen a lot in children's books. When their parents fall in love, the two are thrown together, forced to live as a family in a cottage by the relentless sea.