Balen's writing is experimental and the voice she has created for October feels very much real despite the whimsical feel of her writing. She has Stig, her rescued owlet and has selected the tree she will plant to commemorate turning eleven. Katya is an author and the co-director of Mainspring Arts, a charity that provides creative opportunities for neurodivergent people. a love letter to the trees, a beautifully written middle-grade novel about family, friendship and freedom. October is uncompromising, unafraid to take up space, even and especially in ways that we in civilised society deem undesirable.

Can Mafalda find a way through a seemingly dark future and still go to school, play football and look after her beloved cat? As in life, tragedy and hope sit alongside one another and whilst hope wins out in the end, my hope broke for October and her parents along the way. And from this moment, alongside her grief and fear, as well as her guilt, October is forced to face the other world: London, her mother, school and friendship. I loved Octobers vivid imagination and how she used it as a coping mechanism and a way to feel safe.

I must admit that I was attracted to this children’s novel by the illustrations and the lovely warm colours on the cover, however it is the story inside which is the really warming aspect of this little book. The descriptions of both environments are really well written and one becomes totally engrossed in the development of October as she adjusts.

The school environment, which was difficult and different but full of wonderful characters like Yusuf and Daisy.How her life is very unfair, and her questioning everything, trying to figure out why people want her to behave differently. But overall, I cared for October so much that I wanted that happy ending for her, and didn't care too much how she got it. We see her come to terms wit( letting Stig be reformed to take her rightful place in the wild…and we see her come to accept the change in circumstances and accept both parents playing a role in her life. To begin with it was not a book I could get into but I put my trust in this book and was very glad to. Its incarceration in a cage in the rescue centre, and its subsequent release into the wild again is an obvious – perhaps slightly too obvious – echo of October’s own journey.