How To Build A Family Tree by Eliza Henry Jones

“Some people fix themselves in ways no one else really gets.”

Stella Price is 17 years-old and an expert on helping people.

She has read enough self-help books to be able to know just what to do in any situation.
But then the unthinkable happens when her dad’s gambling addiction has them leaving their
family home to live in a cabin in Fairylands caravan park. Fairylands is full of people who need
her help – so she thinks – but Stella is about to find out that some people don’t need fixing,
some people don’t want fixing and some things just can’t be fixed.

Whilst Stella is too embarrassed to tell her friends she now lives in Fairyland, she slowly
begins to find a sense of community there.

To make things even more complicated, Stella has just received a letter from her birth mother,
and her best friend Clem just might think of her as more than just a friend.

As her family struggles around her, Stella feels the need to get to know her birth mother and her ‘other’ family.

This is a complex family story that explores so many aspects of growing up and striving to find your
place in a complex world that can’t be defined by the mantras gained from self-help books. Stella feels the need to fix everyone else as a distraction from feeling things herself, “It’s not repression, it’s just sensible.” Not every young person has a life as difficult as Stella’s, but through Stella journey, we can all learn more about not making assumptions, not repressing our emotions, looking outside ourselves and that it’s okay
to not have all the answers. Sometimes its just enough to be a friend, a sister, a daughter, and to do our best.

Read more about the author, Eliza Henry Jones.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *