I’m super excited to share the news that A Home for Luna has won the Children’s category in the 2020 International Rubery Book Award. Here’s what they had to say about A Home for Luna, written by Stef Gemmil and published by New Frontier Publishing.
This is everything a picture-book should be. The story is lovely – Luna, a black and white cat, is far from home, washed ashore in a remote place where eventually she’s befriended by a colony of penguins, including Tiny and Yellow-Eye. When a man passing by in a boat attempts to rescue her, Luna doesn’t want to leave, and she and her new friends join forces to drive him away. The illustrations are delightful, particularly the final picture where Luna is nestled at the feet of Tiny and Yellow-Eye like a penguin chick.
The story has universal themes that even very young children will be able to recognise. The idea of ‘home’ and feeling safe and having friends are all very simple concepts for children to understand, because they’re central to their own lives. For this very reason, however, they do feature a great deal in picture-books, and it takes no little skill to come up with something as original and appealing as this story.