“How Will Santa Find Us?” by Shane O’Brien and Stephen Rodgers is a new picture book with a modern and unique Christmas theme. It is based around the story of a little girl and her younger brother who, together with their parents, find themselves homeless at Christmastime.

The family end up in various forms of temporary accommodation – a friend’s house, a hotel, the family car, a hostel. The children’s parents try to alleviate the plight of the children by turning every new location into an imaginative adventure. So, the children end up as knights, detectives, ghosts, mountaineers – anything to take their minds of their precarious home situation.

But what really concerns the children, like any other young children at this time of year, is how will Santa find them?

This unique book is a collaboration of members of the creative community in Ireland to the plight of homelessness in Ireland. This is their way of helping to raise funds for Focus Ireland but also to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness.

This heart-warming tale would be a great book to read to children of all ages – it’s likely that it would strike different chords with different age groups of pupils. This picture book would be perfect for a Critical Thinking and Book Talk session, especially with older pupils as they could really engage with the issue at the heart of the book – Homelessness.

“How Will Santa Find Us?” is published by Good Cop Good Cop and is available in most good book stores, priced at €16.99