What You Need to Be Warm

Sometimes it only takes a stranger in a dark place… to say we have the right to be here, to make us warm in the coldest season.

In 2019, Neil Gaiman asked his Twitter followers: What reminds you of warmth? Over 1,000 responses later, Neil began to weave replies from across the world into a poem in aid of the UNHCR’s winter appeal. It revealed our shared desire to feel safe, welcome and warm in a world that can often feel frightening and lonely.

Now publishing in hardback and illustrated by a group of artists from around the world, What You Need to Be Warm is an exploration of displacement and flight from conflict through the objects and memories that represent warmth. It is about our right to feel safe, whoever we are and wherever we are from. It is about holding out a hand to welcome those who find themselves far from home.

Featuring new, original illustrations from Chris Riddell, Benji Davies, Yuliya Gwilym, Nadine Kaadan, Daniel Egnéus, Pam Smy, Petr Horácek, Beth Suzanna, Bagram Ibatoulline, Marie-Alice Harel, Majid Adin and Richard Jones, with a thought-provoking cover from Oliver Jeffers.

Sales of every copy of this book will help support the work of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, which helps forcibly displaced communities and stateless people across the world.