‘A Slice of the Moon’ by Sandi Toksvig

Sandi Toksvig’s mini-epic is a roller-coaster of a read that races headlong through an important slice of history bringing it vividly to life as it does so. Slim, a young girl growing up in Ireland at the time of the potato famine, tells the sometimes harrowing but nonetheless always hopeful story of her family’s plight at home and flight to a better life. When Slim’s father swaps the family pig for the letters of a printing press because he believes that the power of print will free Ireland from its oppressive landlords, he sets off a chain of troublesome events that lead to the family emigrating to America. Life on the long sea voyage across the Atlantic including new friendships and terrible tragedies, the hope, disappointment and then renewed hope on arrival are all recounted in a lively manner. Sandi Toksvig brings alive important-to-know radical history by dressing it up in a fine coat of adventure.  For ages 9+.