THUNDERHEAD

Beautifully told with humour, music, art and joy Thunderhead is a heart-squeezing and hopeful illustrated novel about the awkwardness of early teen life and the challenge of living with illness and loss. As two big life events approach, Thunderhead an anxious, music-obsessed kid posts playlists and heartfelt diary entries into a defunct internet forum to try to make sense of their changing world and to find the courage to unfurl their heart a little to gain a lot.

"Helloo. Helloooo. Hellooooooooooooo. Can anyone hear me? No? GOOD. That's the way I want it. I'm not writing this for anyone else but me. Here I am, shouting into the abyss. Well, typing into the abyss. The abyss of the internet." Thunderhead is an anxious, music-obsessed kid blurting their angst into a defunct internet forum to avoid the squirmy awkwardness of real life. A real life where Thunderhead is hiding a big secret a secret that if revealed will brand them with the dreaded stigma of being the PWSC, the "poor widdle sick kid". And nobody wants that. NOTHANKYOUVERYMUCH. As two big life events approach, Thunderhead posts playlists and heartfelt diary entries as an outlet to try to make sense of their changing world, to try to manage the storm brewing in their brain and to find the courage to unfurl their heart a little to gain a lot. Drawing on her own personal experiences for inspiration, the author delivers an indelible illustrated novel, immediately engaging, fresh, funny, warm, sad, utterly authentic and entirely unputdownable. Sophie Beer is an award-winning author/illustrator living in Brisbane. She rejoices in creating bright, funny books which centre equality, inclusion and kindness. Her books include Love Makes a Family and have been printed all over the world in many languages and have sold close to one million copies. As an illustrator, she has worked with the likes of Disney, Google, The Guardian and The Boston Globe. In 2016, Sophie was diagnosed with and underwent surgery for an acoustic neuroma, a brain tumour that affects balance, the facial nerve and hearing, and she is subsequently half deaf. Thunderhead, her first novel, was inspired by this transformative event.