Mona Arshi is a poet and novelist. Her choice of book is Summer Book by Tove Jansson which of which she says: "I'm glad it exists in the world". She loves its simplicity and quietness in its exploration of the relationship between a grandmother and a young girl and the unspoken grief that exists between them as they spend the summer on an island off the coast of Finland. Malaika Kegode chooses a book with a very different take on family: White Oleander by Janet Fitch about a young girl Astrid and her beautiful dangerous, selfish mother who makes her daughter feel she is a burden. It's a book Malaika read as a teenager and which she says bridged her passage into reading adult fiction.

Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio, Bristol