The Wilderness

From a thrilling new illustration talent, comes an absorbing and intricately illustrated book that celebrates the great outdoors and all the learning opportunities (and maybe a leafy monster or two...) in nature for children. Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Illustration and the UKLA Book Award , and winner of the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards 2023 honour award for illustration. Praise for The Wilderness: - “A true triumph; deserves pride of place on every bookshelf.” – Just Imagine - “A story filled with optimism, family love, heart-warming happiness, a magical read taking us on an unexpected adventure, presenting a challenge. Beautiful.” – Armadillo Magazine - “There is so much detail in this wonderful book that something new will be picked up with each read.” – Books of 2022, Irish Examiner - “ Everything about this book roars “epic!” […] The attention to detail is astonishing. It’s very much a book that lends itself to being read again and again, following a different path, and character, each time.” – Children’s Books Ireland The Vasylenko family are adventurers. They all love the thrill of exploring the outside world. All that is ... except Oktober. He prefers the warm and safe comfort of the inside world, and for his adventures to take place between the pages of a book. But, one day, Oktober has to join his family on a trek into the slimy, grimy and climby wild, where he sees only danger and worry and fears a creature called "The Wilderness"! Failing to keep his wits about him could be dangerous though – it may even get him a bit ... lost. But perhaps getting lost is just what Oktober needs to find himself and maybe even make an unexpected friend...

From a thrilling new illustration talent, comes an absorbing and intricately illustrated book that celebrates the great outdoors and all the learning opportunities (and maybe a leafy monster or two...) in nature for children. Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Illustration and the UKLA Book Award , and winner of the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards 2023 honour award for illustration. Praise for The Wilderness: - “A true triumph; deserves pride of place on every bookshelf.” – Just Imagine - “A story filled with optimism, family love, heart-warming happiness, a magical read taking us on an unexpected adventure, presenting a challenge. Beautiful.” – Armadillo Magazine - “There is so much detail in this wonderful book that something new will be picked up with each read.” – Books of 2022, Irish Examiner - “ Everything about this book roars “epic!” […] The attention to detail is astonishing. It’s very much a book that lends itself to being read again and again, following a different path, and character, each time.” – Children’s Books Ireland The Vasylenko family are adventurers. They all love the thrill of exploring the outside world. All that is ... except Oktober. He prefers the warm and safe comfort of the inside world, and for his adventures to take place between the pages of a book. But, one day, Oktober has to join his family on a trek into the slimy, grimy and climby wild, where he sees only danger and worry and fears a creature called "The Wilderness"! Failing to keep his wits about him could be dangerous though – it may even get him a bit ... lost. But perhaps getting lost is just what Oktober needs to find himself and maybe even make an unexpected friend...

In 2008, Desiree, January, Monique and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood and of big city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness , that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood - overwhelming, mysterious and full of freedom and consequences - swoops in and stays. Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January\'s got a relationship with a 'good' man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life. As these friends transition from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another - amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability and the increasing volatility of modern life. The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy's masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House . A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.

In 2008, Desiree, January, Monique and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood and of big city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness , that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood - overwhelming, mysterious and full of freedom and consequences - swoops in and stays. Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January\'s got a relationship with a 'good' man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life. As these friends transition from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another - amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability and the increasing volatility of modern life. The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy's masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House . A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.