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Firefly Press will publish Nicola Davies' The Song that Sings Us, an environmental adventure novel for readers aged 12 and over, illustrated by Jackie Morris.
Penny Thomas, publisher, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Veronique Baxter of David Higham Associates. It will be published in hardback on 14th October 2021, ahead of the UN Climate Change Summit in November.
Davies spoke to The Bookseller about the novel this week. The synopsis reads: "Harlon has been raised to protect her younger siblings, twins Ash and Xeno, and their outlawed power of communicating with animals. But when the sinister Automators attack their mountain home they must flee for their lives. Xeno is kidnapped and Harlon and Ash are separated. In a thrilling and dangerous adventure each must journey alone through the ice fields, forests and oceans of Rumyc to try to rescue the others and fulfil a mysterious promise about a lost island made to their mother."
Thomas said: "Nicola Davies has written a thrilling rollercoaster adventure which is also a love-song to our planet. It’s a rare and wonderful combination with an urgent, deeply moving and profoundly hopeful story to tell."
Jackie Morris, illustrator of The Lost Words (Hamish Hamilton), commented: "This book has the feel of an absolute modern classic about it... with stunning characters and sublime poetry wrapped around action. Hope and beauty are a hard song to sing, but Nicola does, and this is it. Her work shines."
Davies is the author of children's books including The Promise (2013), Tiny (2015), A First Book of Nature (2014) and King of the Sky (2018), all published by Walker Books.