The Ape Star

Jonna lives in an orphanage whose manager is strict and obsessed with cleanliness. Like all the other children, Jonna has only one dream: to be adopted by a well-dressed mother who smells of perfume. But one day, a beat-up old car pulls up. The door opens and out step two thick hairy legs with muddy boots, followed by a belly as round as a barrel, and finally, a head like an overgrown pear. It’s a gorilla!

Surely the orphanage won’t let a gorilla adopt a child. But, to Jonna’s horror, the gorilla chooses her… Jonna sleeps in a hammock, and in the evenings the gorilla reads Dickens in her worn armchair. It turns out Jonna and the gorilla have a lot in common. But just when they’ve started to get along, a man from the council threatens to send Jonna back to the orphanage.

The Ape Star is a heartwarming and unconventional chapter book about love, adoption, friendship, and seeing from different perspectives.

An animated adaption starring Stellan Skarsgard (Thor: Ragnarok, Mamma Mia) is now showing worldwide.

Nilsson has a peculiar power to make you remember exactly what it was like to be small, fierce, disempowered and six. The Times UK on Hattie

A sparkling story Kirkus Reviews on Hattie and Olaf

The Ice Sea Pirates is a wild adventure with a huge heart…a beautiful book singing with hope and justice. Sarah Driver of The Huntress