A list of our plenary speakers, sponsored speakers and performers:

Plenary speakers

• Shirin Adl was born in England but moved back to Iran soon after. She had always loved to draw but in post revolution Iran art was considered a hobby and teachers paid no attention to it. When Shirin finished school she came to England and studied illustration at Loughborough.  Her dream was to become a children’s books illustrator and when she finally got the chance to work on her first children’s picture book Shirin was so excited that she had almost illustrated the entire book before the contract had even been signed.. Shirin lives in Oxford with husband Kamyar and four year old son, Dara.

• Patricia Aldana was born and brought up in Guatemala. She came to Canada in 1971, after attending university in the United States.  Groundwood Books was founded by her in 1978. Groundwood's mandate was and has remained the publication of the highest quality Canadian children's books for all ages. Increasingly this has meant finding and developing authors from all of Canada's peoples from the first people to the latest arrivals.  Aldana is active in Canadian and international organizations. She was President of IBBY (2006-2010), (International Board on Books for Young People an NGO comprised of reading promotion organizations from 73 countries), is now President of the IBBY Foundation (2010-) and Canada's representative to the Inter American Publishers Group.  Aldana’s international work through IBBY has focused on bringing children and books together, especially in countries which have not had a reading tradition. Aldana was named to the Order of Canada in 2010.

• Viv Bird began her career in adult education and literacy teaching. She joined the National Literacy Trust in 1994, where she worked in a number of roles including that of Director of Reading Is Fundamental, UK – the nation’s largest non-profit children’s literacy organisation. She became Chief Executive of Booktrust in 2007, and in 2009 she took over the chairmanship of EU Read, a consortium of European reading-promotion organisations that meets regularly to explore new joint strategies.

• Anthony Browne is an internationally acclaimed author and illustrator of children's books, with nearly 40 titles to his name. He creates strongly narrative watercolours that blend near-photographic realism with fantastical, surreal touches and ingenious visual puns. His skilful use of colour, pattern and background detail subtly conveys an exquisite empathy for his lonely and sensitive child protagonists (both human and ape).

• Eliacer Cansino was born in Seville and took his degree in philosophy. His work deals with issues relating to the human condition with thoughtfulness and hope. He teaches philosophy at a secondary education college and regularly takes part in meetings with readers and in fora for discussing literature and reading for young people. He has been selected for the IBBY Honour List (2000) for El misterio Velázquez (The Velázquez Mystery); among “The Best of 2000” chosen by El Banco del Libro (The Book Bank) in Venezuela; and selected as a 2010 “White Raven” by the Internationale Jugend Bibliotek de Munich, with OK, señor Foster (OK, Mr Foster).
  
  In 2010 he won the Spanish National Prize for Children’s Literature for his book Una habitación en Babel (A Room in Babel) which deals with the problems of multiculturalism with depth and sensitivity. He has spoken at conferences in Japan, the USA, England, Mexico and Morocco and his work has been translated into a number of languages.

• Aidan Chambers was winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2002 for his books for children and young people, including Carnegie Medal winner Postcards from No Man’s Land. He has always championed the translation of literature into English, especially for children. He and his wife, Nancy, founded Thimble Press and the magazine Signal to promote children’s literature. Aidan’s publication Tell Me with The Reading Environment has been hugely influential with teachers internationally. His short story collection The Kissing Game and his youth novel Dying to Know You have recently been published.

• Rosemary Clarke MBE joined Booktrust in 1998 and helped to establish Bookstart as the first books for babies programme in the world. Bookstart has inspired Booktust’s other free book programmes, Booktime, Booked Up and Letter Box Club, and Rosemary became Director of Bookgifting Programmes in 2008. Rosemary has contributed to Bookstart’s spread internationally, speaking at conferences in Colombia, Australia, Spain, Japan and China. Bookstart, or similar programmes, now exist across the world. Rosemary was awarded an MBE for services to Education in 2011.

• Wendy Cooling trained as a teacher and taught for several years. In 1990 she left teaching to run the Children’s Book Foundation. It was Wendy’s belief in the beneficial effects of parents and children reading for pleasure together that led to the creation of the Bookstart programme, the first of its kind. Wendy now works as a consultant to a range of children’s publishers, appears regularly on radio and television, and has sat on the judging panel for a number of prizes.

• Kitty Crowther was born in Brussels in 1970, to a Swedish mother and a British father. She has published around 35 picture books, mostly in Belgium and France, and her work has been translated into 20 languages. Because she’s hearing-impaired, Kitty has always been captivated by images, signs and the hidden meaning of things. She has two sons, Théodore and Elias, and absolutely loves plunging back into the imaginary life of children. Kitty won the Grand Prix Triennal de Littérature de jeunesse de la communauté française, a very important prize for the French-speaking community of Belgium, in 2006, and the French Baobab prize in 2009. In 2010 she received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

• Julia Donaldson MBE is the current UK Children’s Laureate, being appointed in 2011, and award winning author of picture books for children including The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child, both of which have been made into films.

• Jamila Gavin was born in India and came to England as a child.  Since her first book, The Magic Orange Tree published in 1979, she has written numerous novels, short stories and collections of myths and legends inspired by the cultures of both countries,  such as the Surya trilogy, Grandpa Chatterji, and Coram Boy, which won the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year in 2000,  and was successfully adapted for the stage at the National Theatre.

• Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator. His translations include novels from Europe, Africa and America, and non-fiction by writers ranging from José Saramago to footballer Pelé. He has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award, the latter for his series of reading guides for children and teens, The Ultimate Book Guides. He is currently compiling the new Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature.

• Michael Harvey is one of the UK’s leading contemporary storytellers. He works at major international festivals in Britain, Europe and North America telling traditional stories from the Celtic countries and beyond with humour, skill and a great sense of enjoyment.  He has appeared frequently on television and radio and works with dancers, musicians, visual artists and many major cultural institutions as well as performers from Brazil, India and Europe.  As well as his work for adults Michael is also in great demand in schools where he tells stories and delivers literacy workshops for both pupils and teachers. He is a skilful and experienced facilitator and leads workshops for storytellers at different levels and combines storytelling with other art forms to deliver effective and innovative training to help organisations and groups with development, change, creativity and communication.

• Rosalind Harvey lives in London where she translates Spanish and Latin American fiction. Her translation of Juan Pablo Villalobos’ debut novel Down the Rabbit Hole was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize. In the autumn last year she was one of the first translators in residence at the Free Word Centre in London.

• Chen Jiang Hong - painter, illustrator and author - was born in the Chinese port of Tianjin in China. He studied art in Beijing and Paris and has been living in the French capital as a freelance artist since 1987. He began illustrating and made his debut as an author of children's books in 1994.
  
  In his picture books, he draws on myths and legends from his home country and draws attention to the diversity of cultures and the beauty of art. On the subject of his attachment to Chinese culture of previous centuries, Chen says: "It is important for me to bring the culture to which I am attached to life, to allow it to cross boundaries, and to allow others to be a part of it. I try to tell stories in such a way that they become universal."

• Dashdondog Jamba is a writer, poet, librarian, translator and storyteller who has dedicated his life to making sure that children in Mongolia have access to books.  He founded a mobile children’s library which has travelled all over Mongolia and has been active in translating world literature into Mongolian to allow Mongolian children to experience stories from around the world. Dashdondog has also written many original works for children and retold a collection of Mongolian folktales.

• Elizabeth Laird was born in New Zealand of Scottish parents, and came to Britain as a child. She worked as an English teacher in Malaysia, Ethiopia and in London. She married David McDowall, then working for the British Council in India, and they later moved to Iraq and then Vienna, and now divide their time between London and Edinburgh. Laird has been a full time writer since 1979. Laird has travelled widely, on a variety of projects. The stories she collected on travels throughout Ethiopia are now available online in English and Amharic. To research her novels, Laird has spent time in Kenya, Zambia, Palestine, Pakistan and the UAE. She has also run workshops for writers in Palestine and Kazakhstan, and worked with animation artists from Russia. Some of Laird's novels are set in contemporary Britain while others reflect her knowledge of other countries. The Garbage King for example, describes the experience of street children in Addis Ababa. Her historical fiction includes The Prince Who Walked with Lions based on the true story of Prince Alamayu of Abyssinia. Her retellings of folk stories include Shanameh, the Persian Book of Kings. Laird has won many prestigious awards, and her work has been translated into more than 20 languages.

• Bart Moeyaert  After three decades, Duet met valse noten (Off-key Duet), Bart Moeyaert’s  debut, published when he was nineteen, is gradually assuming the status of a classic. Since 1983 readers of all ages have discovered the prose and poetry of Bart Moeyaert, giving him a unique position in Dutch literature. His books, including Blote handen (Bare Hands), Wespennest (Hornet’s Nest), Het is de liefde die we niet begrijpen (It’s Love We Don’t Understand) and Broere (Brothers), have won many awards at home and abroad, including the Gouden Uil, the Boekenleeuw, the Woutertje Pieterseprijs, the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, and the Norske Oversetterpremien, and have appeared in twenty languages to date. English translations of five of his novels including Bare Hands are published in the USA by Front Street. Bart Moeyaert teaches Creative Writing at the Royal Art School in Antwerp, and has written screenplays and plays, and he made translations from German (Jürg Schubiger, Christine Nöstlinger), English (Carolyn Coman) and French (Chris Donner). His latest book De Melkweg (The Milky Way) was published in May 2011. Currently he is working on the third part of a trilogy about life, all illustrated by Wolf Erlbruch. This year, Bart Moeyaert was nominated for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award for the fourth time and received his ninth consecutive nomination for the international Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

• Michael Morpurgo OBE is one of Britain’s most well loved writers. He is the author of many children’s books, including War Horse, which has been adapted into a successful play and most recently a film directed by Steven Spielberg. He and his wife Clare run Farms for City Children, a non-profit organisation which brings inner-city children to live and work on farms in the west of England, so they may experience rural life. Michael has won many awards for his books in both the UK and other countries. He was UK Children’s Laureate from 2003 – 2006 and was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II with the MBE in 1999 and the OBE in 2006.

• Beverley Naidoo 
  grew up in South Africa, joining the resistance to apartheid as a student. After detention without trial, she came into exile in Britain. Her first children’s book, Journey to Jo’burg, was banned in South Africa until 1991. Still in print after 27 years, most recent translations are into Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Beverley has won many awards, including the Carnegie Medal for The Other Side of Truth (IBBY Honour Book, 2002)about the children of an outspoken Nigerian writer, forced to seek refuge in London. Stage adaptations include The Playground (Time Out Critic’s Choice ‘Pick of the Year’, 2005). 
   
  Books for younger readers include Baba’s Gift with Maya Naidoo, illustrator Karin Littlewood; The Great Tug of War and other stories; S is for South Africa, a poetry alphabet with photographer Prodeepta Das (Children’s Africana Honor Book, USA 2011); and Aesop’s Fables, illustrator Piet Grobler (Parent’s Choice Silver Award, USA 2011, USBBY 2012 Outstanding International Booklist).  Adult non-fiction includes a biography Death of an Idealist: In Search of Neil Aggett (October 2012, South Africa) and Through Whose Eyes? Exploring racism: reader, text and context, based on her PhD.  Beverley has received honorary doctorates for her body of work and was the South African nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2008.

• Sonia Nimr writes books for children and youth both in Arabic and English. She received her PhD from Exeter University in 1990 in Oral History. Currently she teaches at Bir Zeit University, Department of Cultural Studies. Her English books include A Little Piece of Ground, which she wrote with Elizabeth Laird (2004), and Ghaddar the Ghoul (2007). In 2004 she was on the IBBY HonourList for a story in Arabic called Begins and Ends With Lies (2003). She lives in Ramallah with her young son and husband.

• Emer O’Sullivan, an Irishwoman, is Professor of English Literature at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany. She has published widely in both German and English on comparative literature, image studies, children's literature and translation and has received international recognition for her pioneering work in comparative children's literature studies. Kinderliterarische Komparatistik (Universitätsverlag C. Winter 2000) won the biennial IRSCL Award for outstanding research in 2001, and Comparative Children's Literature(Routledge 2005) won the Children's Literature Association 2007 Book Award. Her Historical Dictionary of Children’s Literature (Scarecrow Press) came out in 2010. She worked at the Institut für Jugendbuchforschung (Institute for Children's Literature Research) at Frankfurt University from 1990-2004 andserved as Vice-President of the IRSCL from 2003-2005. She is currently co-writing a book on children's literature in foreign language teaching. She also co-authored, with Dietmar Rösler, eight genuinely bilingual (English-German) children’s novels.

• Michael Rosen was born into a London Jewish family, the son of two distinguished educators, many of whose ancestors had been immigrants from Poland, Russia and Romania.  He has been writing poetry since he was 18 and is a much loved author of poetry for children, and a highly respected and outspoken speaker on education and literacy. His best known picture book, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, has become a classic. He is also a scriptwriter and performer and visiting professor at three UK Universities. Michael frequently appears on radio and television and runs workshops for teachers on poetry. He was the UK Children’s Laureate for 2007-2009 and the winner of the Eleanor Farjeon Award for services to children’s literature.

• Majo de Saedeleer has, since 2002, been the director of Stichting Lezen (the Reading Foundation) and the president of the IBBY section in Flanders, Belgium. Previously she worked in the fields of education, publishing, theatre and television. For several years she was the director of the National Centre for Children’s Literature in Antwerp. In 2011 she received the Filson Steers Mariman Award for her work in promoting children’s literature in Flanders.

• Izumi Satou was born in Tokyo, Japan. When working in the publication distributor in Tokyo in 1999, she met Bookstart while visiting the UK to study reading promotion programmes. In 2000, she contributed to the establishment of a non-profit organisation Bookstart Japan and became one of its administrators. She introduced the essentials of Bookstart and took initiatives in the creation of the programme which works in the social context of Japan. Since 2006, she has been in charge of the international PR project which aims to share Bookstart experience with people who deliver similar programmes in different countries and regions of the world.

• Shaun Tan was born in 1974 and grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. He graduated from the University of WA in 1995 with joint honours in Fine Arts and English Literature, and currently works full time as a freelance artist and author in Melbourne. Shaun began drawing and painting images for science fiction and horror stories in small-press magazines as a teenager, and has since become best known for illustrated books that deal with social, political and historical subjects through surreal, dream-like imagery. Books such as The Rabbits, The Red Tree, The Lost Thing and the acclaimed wordless novel The Arrival have been widely translated throughout Europe, Asia and South America, and enjoyed by readers of all ages. Shaun is the winner of the 2011 Astrid Lindgren prize, the world's richest children's literature award. The award described Shaun as 'a masterly visually storyteller'. The Lost Thing animation recently won an Oscar for the best animated short film.

Sponsored speakers

• Anthea Bell OBE is a freelance translator from German and French. Her translations include works of fiction and general non-fiction, books for young people, and classics by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Freud, Kafka, and Stefan Zweig. She has won a number of translation awards in the UK and the USA.

• Alexis Deacon graduated from the University of Brighton, where he studied Illustration, gaining a first class honours degree. Alexis Deacon is one of Booktrust's ten Best New Illustrators, and Beegu was a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Alexis lives in London.

• Helen Dennis was born in Brighton and loves living near the sea. She's worked in a boarding school for deaf children; in a book shop and as a children's story teller in a Native American Tepee. She and her husband taught together at the largest Junior School in Europe where she still works part time as a Year Five teacher and Head of English. Writing the Secret Breakers series has been a fifteen year adventure for Helen, and codes are her passion: “The idea of being able to discover a secret that no one else might know about; the chance to make sense out of nonsense; the opportunity to look for hidden meaning and to share the thoughts of the creator of the code, thrills me. As a teacher nothing is more exciting for me than seeing a child break the code of a story. Stories empower and that is why I wanted my stories to be about everyday children who simply use their ability to ask questions and to see things from a different angle in order to be heroes."

• Candy Gourlay was a journalist writing about dictators in the Third World before she took up a full time position battling dictators of the nappy-clad variety. She inadvertently became a web designer while avoiding doing the dishes. She takes procrastination to new levels by blogging, drawing and making YouTube videos for fun. She lives in North London with her husband Richard, her children Nick, Jack and Mia, eight rugby balls and ten basketballs (none of which have any air).

• Mary Hoffman has written over 90 books for children, that range from picture books to novels. Amazing Grace, first published in 1991, was commended for the Kate Greenaway Medal and has since become a modern classic. Together with its sequels, Grace and Family and Princess Grace, and the storybooks Starring Grace, Encore Grace and Bravo, Grace, it has sold around 1.5 million copies. Mary has also written the hugely successful Great Big Book of Families, illustrated by Ros Asquith, which is now in 15 editions worldwide. Her other books for Frances Lincoln include The Colour of Home, Kings and Queens of the Bible and An Angel Just Like Me. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and three Burmese cats, and has three grown-up children, all working in the arts.

• Saci Lloyd was born in Manchester, but raised in Anglesey where she spent most of her time wandering around the lanes and fields with dogs and horses like some kind of mythical bog child.Saci returned to Manchester as an undergraduate, but soon left for a life of glamour. Along came a job as a script editor for Camouflage Films, which involved several projects, including a $20m Columbia Tri-Star co-production, Amy Foster. At various points in the glitz she worked as a very bad cartoonist, toured the States in a straightedge band, ran an interactive media team at an advertising agency, co-founded a film company and finally wound up as head of media at NewVic. Saci has worked in East London at Newham Sixth Form College as Head of Media for the past 8 years. In 2009, she stood down as Head of Department to focus on writing for children, continuing to run the Media A Level and B’Tech courses. Saci very aware of the market she writes for. She understands their day to day lives and that translates over in the voice of her novels.

• Kai Meyer was born in 1969. After studying film and theatre at university, he worked as a journalist before devoting himself to novels. He has since published over fifty titles, including numerous bestsellers, and is recognised as one of the best fantasy writers in Germany. Total sales figures of his works in Germany stand at over 2 million copies. His works have been adapted as films, comics and radio plays, and have been translated into 27 languages.

• Ifeoma Onyefulu was brought up in a traditional village in Eastern Nigeria. Her highly acclaimed children's books are renowned for countering negative images of Africa by celebrating both its traditional village life and its urban life. A is for Africa, her first book, has become a classic title in the genre of cultural diversity and was praised by Publishers Weekly for its 'incisive view of her country's rich heritage'. Ifeoma has twice won the Children's Africana Book Award: Best Book for Young Children in the USA> Here Comes our Bride won the award in 2005 and Ikenna Goes to Nigeria in 2008. Ifeoma lives in London with her two sons.

• Janetta Otter-Barry was Editorial Director of Frances Lincoln Children's Books for 20 years before setting up her own list with Frances Lincoln in 2009. She has a strong commitment to publishing for a culturally diverse society, and was the publisher of the multicultural classic picture book Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman. In 2008 she initiated the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award for new writing, together with Seven Stories, the centre for children's books. Her current list includes picture story books, young fiction, folktale collections, picture information books and poetry.

• Dee Shulman has written and/or illustrated about fifty books for children, ranging from board books to teenage fiction. Her books have been translated into many languages, including Japanese, Dutch and Finnish, been highly recommended in the press and on radio and shortlisted for numerous awards.
  
  Dee has a degree in English from York University and went on to study Illustration at Harrow School of Art. She began her illustration career in magazines, cartoon strips and pop-video storyboards, and only started writing for children when her own children were small. Despite a diet of gummy bears and sherbert fountains, her children have insisted on growing up - so her characters have had to grow up with them, and now even they refuse to do what they're told!

• Jessica Souhami studied at the Central School of Art and Design. In 1980 she formed Mme Souhami and Co, a travelling puppet company using colourful shadow puppets with a musical accompaniment and a storyteller. Her illustrations, like her puppets, use brilliant colour and bold shapes and her characters leap and swoop across the spreads. Her books for Frances Lincoln are Sausages!, In the Dark, Dark Wood, Baba Yaga and the Stolen Baby, Leopard's Drum, No Dinner!, Rama and the Demon King, The Famous Adventures of a Bird Brained Hen, The Little, Little House, Mrs McCool and the Giant Cuchulainn and King Pom and the Fox. Jessica lives in North London.

• Tessa Strickland is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Barefoot Books, an independent children's publishing company with a commitment to cultural and ecological diversity. Founded in 1993, Barefoot Books is based in Oxford, England and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tessa was born in rural Yorkshire in 1958. After reading Classics at Cambridge University, she taught English in Japanese high schools before starting her publishing career with Penguin Books. She has a long-standing interest in the literary traditions of east Asia and particularly enjoys bringing stories from other cultures to the attention of English-speaking readers.

• Mandy Sutcliffe Belle & Boo are the creations of the author and illustrator Mandy Sutcliffe. Mandy studied illustration at Leeds Metropolitan University, during which time she went on a university exchange trip to France. It was here that Mandy’s love for illustrating children truly blossomed as she spent many an hour in the Parisian parks drawing the beautiful French children. She has created several picture books for children, including Goodnight Me, Goodnight You and Evie’s Seaside Lullaby, both published by Orchard Books. Mandy first imagined Belle & Boo five years ago, and has focused on developing these characters ever since. Today, Belle & Boo is a successful international children’s lifestyle brand, run by Mandy and her business partner Kate Shafe. Mandy never stops drawing and now spends her time building her Belle & Boo collection. Belle & Boo and the Birthday Surprise is the first in the new book series created by Mandy with Belle & Boo and the Goodnight Kiss publishing in October 2012.

• Verna Wilkins is the author of 30 picture books and biographies for young people. Her books have featured on National Curriculum and BBC children's television, and been chosen among the Children's Books of the Year. She was born in Grenada and lives in London. In an effort to redress the balance in publishing by putting black children ‘in the picture’, Verna piloted her books in schools where there was a ‘captive audience’. She worked with teachers in an effort to help them choose and use books outside the simple ‘multicultural’ or ‘other cultures’ approach and use a range of books to explore citizenship and diversity, enhance children’s self-confidence and promote a love of reading.

• Louise Yates began drawing pictures to go with the stories she wrote for school and, at a young age, began telling people that she wanted to be a children's book illustrator. She studied English at Oxford University, and currently attends The Prince's Drawing School. She lives in London.

Performers

• Galtzagorri Elkartea, the Basque Branch of IBBY will present Flying over Paper, a performance about Basque literature for children. The literature produced in a language community of between 600,000 and 700,000 speakers has its limitations, but at the same time we are aware that many changes have also taken place. In Basque Literature for Children and Young Adults today, we can read the best works worldwide and we can offer our works so that they can be made known. All this, this spirit, is what we want to work on and offer in the event that we have prepared for the first time and for the London congress specially: words - poems, stories, songs…-  accompanied with the suggestive power of images and music. And through it we would like to show what Basque literature for children and young adults is all about today.

• Lemn Sissay is the author of five collections of poetry. Published by Canongate books his sculpture poem Gilt of Cain was unveiled by Bishop Desmond Tutu. He has also written plays for stage and BBC radio.  He is the first poet to write for the Olympics 2012 and received an MBE from the Queen for Services to Literature. He is associate artist at the Southbank Centre, and an (hon) doctor of letters.

• Theatre Peckham, which is celebrating 25 years of existence, aims to raise the skills, confidence and aspirations of young people through education, training and participation in performing arts. It offers a wide range of opportunities for children, young people, adults and families living in the London borough of Southwark and beyond to get involved in the arts. Theatre Peckham delivers customised performing arts projects, professional theatre productions and educational projects and creates highly accessible and exciting theatre!
  
  At the opening ceremony of the IBBY congress, children from Theatre Peckham will perform songs from their recent production of 'The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane' by Kate DiCamillo. The novel from which the play was developed is published in the UK by Walker Books.
  
   

  Once, in house on Egypt Street, there lives a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. He was owned by a girl called Abilene, who treated him with the utmost care and adored him completely. And then, one day, he was lost. Edward takes us on an extraordinary journey, form the depths of the ocean to the streets of Memphis. And along the way, we are shown that even a heart of the most breakable kind can learn to love, to lose and to love again.