First Year

Nate’s eleven and has just finished Primary School. After a challenging final year, life is looking up. His brother has recovered from a life-threatening heart condition, he’s got the love of his mum, brothers and Auntie San, and he’s off to Secondary School with his two best mates.

But while he's making new friends and avoiding the fists of Turner, his old nemesis, and struggling to come to terms with a strict new teacher and a sense of isolation from his brothers, a sudden surprise appearance in Nate's life threatens to throw him completely off course. And The Beast - the anger he tries so hard to control - reappears. Will Nate find a way to keep himself and his family together?

Now a multi award winning full-time poet, Matt Goodfellow visits schools around the UK and beyond, inspiring children and adults to get involved with poetry through his performances and workshops and working with organisations including National Poetry Day, the Forward Arts Foundation, the Premier League, the National Literacy Trust, Book Trust and CLPE.  His debut novel, told in verse, The Final Year, illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton, for middle-grade readers, won The CLiPPA Award for Children’s Poetry 2024 and the Children’s Book Award for Older Readers 2024 (Federation of Children’s Book Groups) amongst many others. The follow-up to The Final Year, The First Year, is published in April 2025.

He is also the author of Caterpillar Cake, illustrated by Krina Patel-Sage and shortlisted for the CLiPPA award in 2022, Shu-Lin’s Grandpa, illustrated by Yu Rong and shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2022 and a contributor to CLiPPA-shortlisted poetry collection Being Me: Poems about Thoughts, Worries and Feelings, all published by Otter-Barry Books. He has written two poetry collections for older readers: Let’s Chase Stars Together, shortlisted for the CLiPPA award 2023, and Tomorrow We Begin, published in 2024. Matt lives in Stockport.

Joe Todd-Stanton grew up in Brighton and has a first class degree in Illustration from UWE, Bristol. He is a widely acclaimed author and illustrator of picture books and graphic novels. The Secret of Black Rock was longlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Award, shortlisted for Oscar’s Book Prize and won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. A Mouse Called Julian was shortlisted for Oscar’s Book Prize and won the Spark! Book Award. The Comet was shortlisted for the UKLA Book Award and won the Shadowers’ Choice Award for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration, 2023. His latest book is Luna and the Treasure of Tlaloc, published in 2024, which was shortlisted for the Spark! Book Award. Joe lives in London.