Our Building

Our Building tells the story of three children living in a high-rise who find beauty and wonder in their building and its community.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARDS 2023*

From award-winning children’s poet Joseph Coelho comes this enchanting story of three kids looking for adventure in their building.

Drawn from Coelho’s own experience growing up in a high-rise, this is a celebration and reclaiming of them as places full of power and magic.

A power that resides
in the smiles of our neighbors.
A magic that seeps out
when we swap our home-baked flavors.

A deeply personal story written by the award-winning poet Joseph Coelho, drawn from his own experience growing up in a high-rise and looking for adventure.

Three children living in the building travel to a strange, magical world inside a tree and meet an old man with supernatural powers… only to realize that the magic they’d been looking for had been in the building all that time, in the form of community and connection.

Beautiful illustrations complement the poetic narrative, creating an enchanting story that children and adults alike will fall in love with. This powerful story shows us the true beauty of home and community. It’s a modern-day fable about how society separates ‘urban’ spaces from the suburbs, when the reality is that nature is everywhere, and everyone should have access to it.

JOSEPH COELHO is the Waterstones Children's Laureate 2022-2024. In 2019 he won the Independent Bookshop Week Picture Book Award for If All the World Were which has been translated into over 10 languages. He has been long-listed for The Carnegie Children's Award with his poetry collection 'Overheard In A Tower Block', which was also shortlisted for the CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award and Longlisted for the UKLA Book Awards. He won the 2015 CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award with his debut poetry collection Werewolf Club Rules. His debut Picture Book, Luna Loves Library Day was voted one of the nations favourite picture books by a survey led by World Book Day. His other poetry books include How To Write Poems and A Year Of Nature Poems .

Richard Johnson is an illustrator whose picture books have been published by Penguin, Faber & Faber, Macmillan, DK, and many others. His work is deeply thoughtful and conjures up powerful atmospheres with detailed, delicate pencil strokes.

ISBN: 9780711268845