Seventeen times as high as the moon - Livi Michael

Polly has had enough. She lives with her huge family in a smelly old shoe. It is cramped and leaky, and Polly has to share a bed with as many as thirteen of her brothers and sisters. Her mum is always nagging her to put the kettle on, and all they have to eat is broth (without any bread). So Polly, together with her brother Pockets, decide to run away. They are going to look for a better place for the family to live. But when they find the perfect home - a pair of gigantic seven-league boots as big as a block of flats - there is one very large problem...the GIANT!

Livi Michael was born in the 'world's most interesting city', Manchester, and although this is where she physically grew up, her real home existed in her imagination; Narnia, Middle Earth, the Praries of Northern America and the Canadian islands! Real 'home' was the seventh floor of a tower block, which is how Livi developed her interest in astronomy, leaning at precarious angles off the balcony to learn the constellations. When she wasn't gazing at the skies or imagining herself in some far-off place, a seven-year old Livi was lost in her favourite books, Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, and aspiring to be a writer.

After gaining a First Class English Literature degree from Leeds University, Livi studies for a PHD before becoming a University Lecturer. Since then Livi has written a variety of prize-winning books, including Under a Thin Moon. Her latest children's book for Orchard Books, 43 Bin Street, is a humorous story about two flies, Natalie and Kiko. Their mission - like all flies since the beginning of time - is to keep their allocated humans exercised and to help them recycle their food. A new mission, a new street and new humans - Nattie and Kiko have a problem when they are assigned to 43 Bin Street. The occupants are obsessively clean! Not even a crumb of food is left on any surface and they even use fly spray! How will Nattie and Kiko fulfil their fly destiny and obey the teachings of the flyrule with humans like this?

Livi lives in Manchester with her two sons.

Delightful ... a great story, lightly and amusingly told and full of magical detail
The Northern Echo

Livi Michael's entertaining story is ideal for children newly competent in reading
School Librarian