Stephen Lightbown's 'And I Climbed And I Climbed' in Read for Empathy Collection 2025

The 2025 Read for Empathy collection is here and Troika is delighted to be participating once again!

Stephen Lightbown's poetry collection And I Climbed And I Climbed is among the 70 expertly-selected books, curated to build young people’s empathy.

EmpathyLab has produced a #ReadforEmpathy book collection, with accompanying book guides, annually since 2017. Each title in the collection is been chosen by a panel of judges who work hard to assemble a contemporary, diverse list of titles.

The books will be used by parents, carers, teachers and librarians nationwide to help boost young peoples’ empathy skills year-round and particularly in the run-up to Empathy Day.

Empathy Day is on 12 June this year and will be preceded by a ten-day nationwide festival from 2-12 June. This extended national campaign will provide a flexible framework for widespread community participation, inspiring children to learn about empathy, put it into action and develop key empathy skills. Register for free at www.empathylab.uk/empathy-day and help to raise an empathy-educated generation!

And I Climbed And I Climbed is Stephen Lightbown’s first poetry collection for children. Stephen is already an established poet and performer for adults. In it, he draws on his own personal experiences as a wheelchair user, while creating a unique and utterly engaging character in Cosmo, a boy who has had a life-changing fall from the tree he loves to climb.

Empathy Lab’s judges said, “[This is] a superb collection from a disabled author, about a boy in a wheelchair, having fallen from a tree. Written from many perspectives – his own, his mother’s, the tree’s... The poems’ profundity and depth leave the reader changed, with new insights and deepened empathy.”

Discover more about Stephen’s book and Cosmo’s journey, download a free CLPE Teaching Sequence, watch Stephen read some of the poems and read his blog about why he wrote the book at www.troikabooks.com/and-i-climbed-and-i-climbed

Find out all about the Read for Empathy Collection 2025, explore the full list of 70 empathy-boosting books and download free guides to the collection at www.empathylab.uk/RFE