About the Book

In his new verse novel, Joseph Coelho brilliantly blends Greek myth with a 21st century quest. In Ancient Greece Theseus makes a dangerous and courageous journey to find his father, finally meeting the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. While Theo, a modern-day teenage boy, finds himself on a maze-like quest to find his own father. Each story tells of a boy becoming a man and discovering what true manhood really means,

The path to self-discovery takes Theo through ‘those thin spaces where myth, magic and reality combine’. Doubts, difficulties and dangers must be faced as Theo discovers the man he will become.

About the Author

Joseph Coelho became the Waterstones Children’s Laureate in 2022. His debut poetry collection Werewolf Club Rules, published by Frances Lincoln, won the CLiPPA Poetry Award in 2015. He has written plays for young people for the Theatre Royal York, Pied Piper, Polka and The Unicorn Theatres. As well as poetry and plays, Joseph also writes picture books including Luna Loves Library Day (Andersen Press) and non-fiction books including How To Write Poems (Bloomsbury). All of his work has poetry and an element of performance at its heart making his festival and school sessions dynamic occasions. Joseph is a staunch ambassador for Britain’s straitened public libraries. He lives in Kent.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/JosephACoelho
Laureate Twitter: http://twitter.com/uklaureate
Instagram: http://instagram.com/josephcoelhoauthor

About the Illustrator

Kate Milner studied illustration at Central St Martin’s before completing an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Angela Ruskin University. Kate won the V&A Illustration Award 2016 and the Klaus Flugge Prize 2018 for My name is not Refugee. Her book It’s a No-Money Day (2019, Barrington Stoke) was shortlisted for the Greenaway Medal.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/abagforkatie
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thatpaperhat

What I Thought

This is such an ambitious book, a novel in verse, parallel stories of modern day and myth, an exploration into manhood and fatherhood and even at points a choose your own adventure. But coming from the Children’s Laureate what would we expect other than for it to be handled successfully.

I visually read this but I have previously listened to other verse novels (e.g. One by Sarah Crossan) and I think if you are reluctant to read poetry I’d definitely recommend audio or reading along in parallel.

We have three characters we are following. Theo – our modern day character who is the protagonist and voice of the novel, Theseus, and the Minotaur (although I have to admit wanting more from this third character – ooh a sequel focusing on what he did next would be fab).

I thought it was cleverly done that the trials Theseus faced on making his way back to his father are echoed in Theo’s similar journey. The parallel of mythology and modern day was great and how the modern day ‘learning’ was represented was excellent.

One of my favourite poems of all time is Digging by Seamus Heaney and some of the poetry focusing on writing and use of words over swords and use of violence reminded me of this.

‘So, I muscle into my words

grab at them with toothed hands

forming a sentence to stop the battering…’

The book gets a little gruesome at times and one big complaint I have is not having the poem talking about Sestinas not, in actual fact, being a Sestina 😂.

The illustrations throughout were beautiful and I particularly liked the concluding image.

The Boy Lost in the Maze sadly won’t be a book for everyone – (because people will be put off by the fact it’s told as poems) but I really hope it gets a broader audience and helps foster our next generation of poets, and helps people see that poetry can be used in different ways.

Thanks to Blue at Kaleidoscopic Tours and the publisher for the gifted copy for the purposes of an honest review. Do check out the rest of the tour.