Welcome to The Irish Times Books Podcast, which this week features my interview with Sarah Crossan, Ireland’s Laureate na nÓg.

Crossan is one of Ireland’s most successful Young Adult writers, having won the Carnegie Medal in 2016 for her verse novel, One, and been shortlisted twice, for The Weight of Water and Apple & Rain.

We discuss her latest young adult verse novel Toffee, about a teenager who runs away from an abusive home and befriends an elderly woman.

We also talk about her career, her work as children’s laureate at the halfway stage of her tenure, and her identity as an Irish person growing up and living in Britain.

The Irish Times Books podcast is sponsored by Green & Blacks.