Out today, The Girl Who Became a Tree is an extraordinary verse novel about Daphne, a young teen whose father has died. Daphne disappears into her phone screen, library and imagination – shutting out the world, she avoids her sorrow by becoming the tree for which she was named by her father (from the legend of Daphne, who turns into a tree to avoid the attentions of Apollo). Stricken by her loss and inability to leave the river of her father’s comfort, the book interweaves the legendary Daphne with Daphne today’s slow return from the loneliness of grief with the solace of nature, and books.
The illustrations by Kate Millner are fantastic and are an excellent foil to the haunting text – which has been told in a variety of poetic forms.
Excellent.
The Girl Who Became a Tree by Joseph Coelho is published by Otter-Barry and is available here.
Poetry Roundabout 
I was lucky enough to attend the online launch and Joe talked about the links between forests and libraries and books as places of restoration. It’s a challenging endeavour and he read superbly / in my view, this is a classic and I admire Joe’s commitment to digging deep. A wonderful, rich read for 12+ yrs. intense illustrations that lend power to the image-word impact.
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