Night Shift

Description

'I cannot recommend this beautiful picture book about depression by Debi Gliori highly enough. It's a masterpiece.' - David Walliams, bestselling children's author A groundbreaking picture book on depression with stunning illustrations. With stunning black and white illustration and deceptively simple text, author and illustrator Debi Gliori examines how depression affects one's whole outlook upon life, and shows that there can be an escape - it may not be easy to find, but it is there. Drawn from Debi's own experiences and with a moving testimony at the end of the book explaining how depression has affected her and how she continues to cope, Debi hopes that by sharing her own experience she can help others who suffer from depression, and to find that subtle shift that will show the way out. 'I have used dragons to represent depression. This is partly because of their legendary ability to turn a once fertile realm into a blackened, smoking ruin and partly because popular mythology shows them as monstrous opponents with a tendency to pick fights with smaller creatures. I'm not particularly brave or resourceful, and after so many years battling my beasts, I have to admit to a certain weariness, but I will arm-wrestle dragons for eternity if it means that I can help anyone going through a similar struggle.' 'Debi Gliori is amazing. Her pictures offer people an insight into depression that words often struggle to reach. She makes visible the invisible. And I for one want to thank her for that.' - Matt Haig, bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive

Debi Gliori lives in Scotland. Debi is well known for both her picture books and her novels for children and has been shortlisted for all the major prizes, including the Kate Greenaway Award (twice) and the Scottish Arts Council Award. Debi was the Shetland Islands' first Children's Writer-in-Residence. She has written and illustrated No Matter What, The Trouble With Dragons, Stormy Weather, The Scariest Thing of All, What's the Time, Mr Wolf?, Dragon Loves Penguin and, most recently, Alfie in the Bath and Alfie in the Garden as well as the popular Pure Dead fiction series for older readers.

Night Shift is a category-challenging book and this, I think, is one of its most important qualities. Giving permission for adults to engage with difficult and emotionally draining issues through the medium of a picture book is both innovative and oddly enough a piece of plain common-sense - if this is the best way to confront the topic at hand then there's no good reason not to use that format. * The Letterpress Project * Beautiful illustrations highlight the pain of depression... it's so important that books like this exist * Morley Observer *