The Rise and Resurrection of Vampires in YA ~ Amy McCaw

I’ve been interested in vampires for as long as I can remember. Some time in those early readings of Point Horror, Anne Rice and Stephen King, vampires stood out to me. Watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my early teens cemented the fascination. A lot of people I know are constant vampire readers like me, but every now and again they fall out of favour. So what vampire books do I think you should read, and why are we currently in yet another vampire heyday?

Twilight came out in 2005, igniting a fresh obsession with vampires and other supernatural beings that spread from the intended YA audience to adult readers. This sparked a flood of paranormal YA books, leaving publishers tentative to take on any more and readers seeking out vampires that were more sparkly than scary.

I enjoy all kinds of vampire books, so I was fine with that trend. Part of the reason I think vampire books continue to be revived is that there’s so much room for variety and reinvention.

Even in the 90s, The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith was exploring that vampires can be tortured souls with a conscience or witty murderous antagonists that might kiss or kill the main character. Later books like The Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine did their own spin on vampire mythology (in this case, a town overrun with vampires that humans can’t leave once they enter). Holly Black also did her take on a vampire town in The Coldest Girl in Cold Town. For historical vampire fiction, try The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh, All These Bodies by Kendare Blake or Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco.

There’s also been a fun subgenre of vampire books that deal with contemporary issues alongside vampires. Fell of Dark by Caleb Roehrig; Big Bad Me by Aislinn O’Loughlin (also featuring werewolves); The Reluctant Vampire Queen by Jo Simmons; Vampires, Hearts and Other Dead Things by Margie Fuston and Carry On by Rainbow Rowell fit nicely into this category.

You might be thinking that the current trend for dark academia is more your speed. If you want a boarding school book with vampires, Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead, Marked by PC and Kristen Cast and Crave by Tracy Wolff have got you covered.

Recently, even my ultimate vampire favourite Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been given a reboot. Kendare Blake is writing a trilogy set over a decade after season 7 of Buffy, first with In Every Generation and in January 2023 with One Girl in All the World. William Ritter has also given Spike the prequel novel he deserves in Bloody Fool for Love. I also need to check out Big Bad by Lily Anderson, set in an alternative reality Sunnydale in 1999.

So why are vampire books just as popular as they’ve ever been? YA horror is seeing a lot of mainstream success, with TV shows like Stranger Things and the Fear Street movie fueling the obsession. I also think the pandemic and recent world events have left people craving escapism more than ever, and visiting a world of fun scares and supernatural goings on is just what a lot of people need. I know I do.

Amy McCaw is the author of Mina and the Undead & Mina and the Slayers

Universal Music Group and The Reading Agency gift books by Black authors to libraries across the UK

As Black History Month reaches its conclusion, The Reading Agency and Universal Music Group (UMG) are pleased to announce the ‘Mark My Words’ campaign, providing copies of books by Black authors to libraries across the UK. The Reading Agency partnered with UMG through the company’s UK Task Force for Meaningful Change (UKTFMC), which focuses on the unique challenges facing the UK’s Black community.

The titles, including both fiction and non-fiction books for both children and adults, will be donated to local authority hubs across the UK. Selected collaboratively between UMG and The Reading Agency, the collection of engaging and accessible titles has been chosen to appeal to a broad audience of all reading levels.

The ‘Mark My Words’ campaign supports a joint commitment to social justice, championing the role that reading plays in tackling inequality. By gifting the titles directly into public libraries, ‘Mark My Words’ will ensure that the books are freely accessible to those who will benefit from them most.

Research on children’s books in the UK shows that published authors and illustrators do not reflect the UK population at large. In 2019, 8.68% of children’s book creators were people of colour, with just 2.86% being British people of colour.[1]Research demonstrates that children’s books can support young people in the exploration of themselves and others, providing recognition for readers who can identify, and insight and understanding for those who don’t.[2] Similarly for adults, studies show that writers of colour are ‘undervalued’ by the publishing industry, affecting the acquisition, promotion, and sales of their books.[3] A survey of writers across the UK found that while 13% of respondents identified as being from a minority ethnic background, only 9% earned more than £30,000 annually for their writing[4]. By gifting these books into libraries UMG and The Reading Agency hope to shine a light on Black authors and their creativity.

The series of gifted books will be announced in November and will include titles from the 2022 Quick Reads series, The Reading Agency’s life-changing programme which tackles the UK’s adult literacy crisis by helping less confident readers get reading.

The titles will be available to borrow in public libraries from early December and will be accompanied by a series of events in libraries across the country with some of the books’ authors. Full details of the events programme will be announced in the coming weeks. The children’s titles will also be supported with free Chatterbooks resources, consisting of activities designed to support children’s development by encouraging them to read and talk about books.

Karen Napier, CEO, The Reading Agency says:“We are delighted to be partnering with Universal Music Group on this inspiring campaign. A key objective for The Reading Agency is to ensure the work and impact of The Reading Agency is reflective of the society in which we live and of those we serve. Working together on this campaign offers an exciting opportunity to fulfil some of these objectives and celebrate important books by excellent Black authors.”

Dr. Menna Demessie, Senior Vice President and Executive Director of Universal Music Group’s global Task Force for Meaningful Change says: “Supporting initiatives like ‘Mark My Words’ is extremely important for us. To be able to help place Black authors’ work into more hands, to help push Black stories into more spaces – it’s so important to this journey of empowerment, empathy, and unity that we are all on as a nation. We thank The Reading Agency for helping us to deliver such a powerful project.”

[1] We Need Diverse Books (2021); Ramdarshan Bold (2020), ‘Representation of people of colour among children’s book authors and illustrators’

[2] CLPE (2020) Reflecting Realities

[3] Saha and van Lente (2020), ‘Re:Thinking Diversity in Publishing

[4] Royal Society of Literature (2019), ‘A Room of My Own: What writers need to work today’

Antiracist Reading for All Ages

Penguin Young Readers has updated and released a curated book list that explores multifaceted identities of People of Color (of the Global Majority) and provider context and calls for action for grades PreK-12.

Title of the document

The Boy Lost in the Maze

I am writing this review as I am re-reading The Boy Lost in the Maze, the stories of Theo, Theseus, the Minotaur – each protagonist’s story mirroring the others in their similarities – tales as old as time told, and retold until edges have blurred and new lights are cast on elements often obscured in previous tellings.

I drowned in Joseph Coelho’s poetry, as I finished each (brief) chapter I felt like I was coming up for air before submerging myself in the narrative again..

The rawness of their search for fatherhood and identity to help scrub away their feelings of abandonment and shame left me feeling overwhelmed yet unable to lay the book down.

The choose your own adventure element came as a delightful surprise and kept it from being a cover to cover read, allowing the reader to decide what actions should be taken, influencing the story and having a slightly different experience with each reread.

This work will win awards, not just because Joseph is the current Waterstones Poet Laureate, but because in the deceptive simplicity of the lines and verses lies a deep, complex story that will swallow you whole and hold you entranced until the final page is turned.

The Boy Lost in the Maze is the third work by Joseph Coelho and artist Kate Milner. It is published by Otter-Barry Books and is available from October 6th. 

Highly recommended for readers of all ages!

The Bookstart Bear and Tala the Storyteller

Who is The Bookstart Bear?

Matt temporarily an avatar of the Bookstart Bear

30 years ago The Bookstart Bear was introduced as the national mascot for the BookTrust’s Bookstart programme as part of their resources to encourage families to read and share stories with their children as early as possible.

As a result of brand refresh in 2020, BookTrust began phasing out the Bookstart Bear character and introduced a range of new characters to ensure their resources would continue to appeal to families today and in the future.

Many local authorities and libraries have continued to use the Bookstart Bear character in their own activities and we are happy for them to do so for as long as they find it a helpful tool to engage with their local families.

Other libraries and local authorities have started creating their own characters to engage with families and young readers.

This brings us to Tala the Storyteller.

Who is Tala?

Tala the Storyteller

Tala the Storyteller is a friendly alien who likes to go on journeys, seeking out stories and rhymes to share with children.

Tala was created by local artists Emma Phillips and Eva Povey using funds from an Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant for Hertfordshire County Council. They worked with families through interactive workshops to find out what appeals to young children and used these ideas in their design.

Tala is an alien child and as such is neither male or female (allowing children of any gender to identify with them).

Who is Maya Forstater?

Maya Forstater is a British business and international development researcher who is the claimant in Maya Forstater v Centre for Global Development.

On September 29th Maya Forstater tweeted:

The accusation that Tala was a trans bear set off a global firestorm on social media. Hitchin Library tried to answer the questions posed by Maya’s tweet

Even the official twitter account for the Hertfordshire County Council tried to intervene and calm things

but to no avail.

Over the next few days Maya doubled down and hammering at Hitchin Library and Tala the Storyteller, trying to foment an gender critical uprising against a reading mascot that was created with input from young people from the community it served.

Tala the Storyteller seems to be becoming the most recognized reading mascot around the world. With news organizations from Hitchin News Hub & Pink News to conservative outlets the New York Post, the Daily Mail and more covering the story.

Defenders of Herts Libraries and Tala include

Maureen Johnson

Billy Bragg

Danny Pearson

Joanne Harris

and a whole raft of believers in equality and equity of representation and access.

This attack on Tala the Storyteller is just another front in the culture war against libraries being welcoming and inclusive that has opened up.

Way back in 2010 I was honoured to serve as an avatar of the Bookstart Bear. Over the last 30 years, many of my colleagues have done the same, some female, some male (like me) and others whose genders I did not know. Did this make the Bookstart Bear genderfluid or trans? Who cares? If the question had been asked even a few years ago it would have been ridiculed as people making a fuss over Tala have been ridiculed and called out today.

When Gender Critters Attack

Once the dust of this overhyped non-controversy has settled and exclusionary gender critters have moved on to another target Hertfordshire Libraries will still be running family library events with Tala and BookTrust will still be offering support and resources to those who need them most. You can find out about some if these below.

Earlier this year BookTrust developed a new pilot, Bookstart Toddler and Bookstart Pre-schooler which are packs and resources specifically aimed at disadvantaged children and families and will be delivered through targeted approaches by a range of nurseries and children’s centres to ensure we reach children most in need. Last year they launched a new pilot library initiative BookTrust Storytime. Aimed at families with children aged 0-5, especially those who are disadvantaged, BookTrust Storytime is designed to support families to share stories together and make visiting the library a regular part of family life.

The Diverse Book Awards 2022

The Diverse Book Awards is now in its third year, showcasing the talent of marginalised voices. I’ve been lucky enough to read all of the books nominated for the children’s and YA lists to help whittle down to a long list, but yesterday the shortlist was revealed! The winner will be announced on the 20th October.

Children’s

Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths by Maisie Chan, illustrated by Anh Cao (Piccadilly Press)

Hey You! by Dapo Adeola, Diane Ewan, Onyinye Iwu, Jade Orlando, Bec Glendining, Derick Brooks, Joelle Avelino, Dunni Mustapha, Kingsley Nebechi, Chanté Timothy, Nicole Miles, Camilla Sucre, Jobe Anderson, Alyissa Johnson, Chatlot Kristensen, Sharee Miller, Reggie Brown, Selom Sunu, Gladys Jose (Penguin Random House Children’s)

How I Saved the World In A Week by Polly Ho-Yen, illustrated by George Ermos (Simon & Schuster Children’s UK)

Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow by Benjamin Dean, illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat (Simon & Schuster Children’s UK)

The Best Diwali Ever by Sonali Shah, illustrator Chaaya Prabhat (Scholastic)

The Lightning Catcher by Claire Weze (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)

The Shark Caller by Zillah Bethell (Usborne)

The Very Merry Murder Club by Abiola Bello, Annabelle Sami, Benjamin Dean, Dominique Valente, Elle McNicoll, E.L. Norry, Maisie Chan, Roopa Farooki, Nizrana Farook, Patrice Lawrence, Joanna Williams, Serena Patel, Sharna Jackson, illustrated by Harry Woodgate. Edited by Robin Stevens and Serena Patel (Farshore)

Young Adult

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (Usborne)

Being Amani by Annabelle Steele (Hashtag BLAK)

Skin of The Sea by Natasha Bowen (Penguin Random House Children’s)

Splinters of Sunshine by Patrice Lawrence (Hodder Children’s Books)

The Crossing by Manjeet Mann (Penguin Random House Children’s)

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (Hodder Children’s Books)

What We’re Scared Of by Keren David (Scholastic)

You’re The One That I Want by Simon James Green (Scholastic)

Adult

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho (Pan Macmillan)

His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie (Oneworld)

Next of Kin by Kia Abdullah (HQ)

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (Viking Books)

The Day I Fell Off My Island by Yvonne Bailey-Smith (Myriad Editions)

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (Viking Books)

The Jigsaw Man by Nadine Matheson (HQ)

This One Sky Day by Leone Ross (Faber)

For more info please email hello@thediversebookawards.co.uk

For PR enquiries please email info@literallypr.com 

​Official blogger is Samia Aziz @readwithsamia

The Carnegies

Well the latest news took me by surprise, actually it seems to have taken a lot of people by surprise, it may just be me but the name “The Carnegies” sounds more like a soap opera or sit-com – but wait, I am getting ahead of myself here.

Let’s rewind back to February of this year when the news broke that CILIP & Yoto had entered into a partnership for Yoto to become the headline sponsor of what was then known as the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Awards, and that they were being renamed the Yoto Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals.

Being an inquisitive sort and having what may kindly be described as a possessive attachment to the awards (an affliction that most ex-judges seem to have) I reached out to the press people with some questions (see below) that I had put together after reading the press release several times.

Questions:

  • How did the idea of a partnership between CILIP & Yoto with regards to the Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Awards come about?
  • How will this partnership work with books that do not have audio versions? Take for example, the 2020 Carnegie winner Lark by Anthony McGowan which is published by Barrington Stoke who do not currently offer audiobooks.
  • If no official audio versions are available, is there a deal with Calibre Audio or the RNIB Talking Books to offer the audio versions they make available for print disabled readers through Yoto?
  • If the answer to the previous question is yes, how will this affect the rights of copyright holders?
     Will CKG shortlisted titles available on Yoto be sold via the official book suppliers Peters or will they be exclusively available via the Yoto store?
  • Does CILIP endorse Yoto Player as the “official” audiobook device for the Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Awards in any way?
  • With fuel, transport & food costs skyrocketing across the UK is there a concern that the price of the Yoto Players and smartcards may be a barrier to equitable access?
  • How does CILIP envision Yoto being “able to engage and include more young people in reading the best books for pleasure”?
  • How will “audio content for promotion through point of sale for retail, libraries and schools” work? Will there be excerpts of the books available to download, interviews with authors/illustrators etc?
  • What does the Yoto Player offer to CKG Shadowing that audiobooks via digital library services like Overdrive and Playaway or CD audiobooks do not?
  • How will Yoto actually work with promoting the Kate Greenaway Award? It is a Medal for an “outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people” being a screen free device, the Yoto Player will not be able to show the best of the works nominated for it?
  • Do audiobooks downloaded onto the Yoto Player stay on the device until they are deleted or do they have to be redownloaded periodically?
  • Will Yoto smartcards be available through Public & School Libraries?
  • If no – why not?
  • If yes will there be a limit on the number of times each item is able to be loaned?

I was put in touch with Jake Hope, the Chair of the CKG Working Party and, after several e-mails back and forth we were able to arrange a date for a skype chat to discuss the sponsorship news.

The long-term battering that Public Libraries in the UK had been experiencing brought up the question of the awards sustainability and that they (CILIP) had been looking for sponsorship for quite some time, and, working with Agile Ideas to find new opportunities of spreading the messaging of the awards and increasing their reach they had been connected with Yoto. Jake stressed during the interview that it was less a partnership and more straightforward sponsorship deal. In Yoto CILIP had found an organization that was as driven by a passion for promoting reading for pleasure that matched the passion held by those that worked in driving the CKG awards forward.

Neither CILIP nor the CKG Working Party would endorse the Yoto Player as an official device, rather they see it as a new element of accessibility, joining the options already offered by their RNIB & Calibre Audio partners.

All in all Jake felt that the positives of the (not) partnership far outweighed any potential negatives and would make the awards sustainable for years to come.

I always enjoy chatting to Jake and for years have found him to be a nigh-inexhaustible well of information and great stories about the medals and librarianship in general. However, he was not able to answer any of the Yoto specific questions I had, the biggest one (in my mind anyway) being: How will Yoto actually work with promoting the Kate Greenaway Award? It is a Medal for an “outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people” being a screen free device, the Yoto Player will not be able to show the best of the works nominated for it?

Sadly, when I reached out to the Yoto, their press officer declined to participate in an interview or answer the questions I had via email as (and I am quoting here): Given that we worked closely with Jake on his kind replies to your recent enquiries, we feel we’ve responded to the queries as best we can at this stage.

They did however offer to send me a Yoto Player and some cards. It is a fantastic device and very child friendly – I will be posting a review of it in due course.

Unfortunately the questions I had for Yoto still remain unanswered – except for a clarification coming over the future of the Kate Greenaway Medal tht came out of the news today, and, sad to say, I think my concern was justified.

Now back to the news that broke today of the rebranding of the Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals as “The Carnegies” I found the documentation very interesting, but what caught my eye was this sentence in the Q&A document: The three-year sponsorship deal with Yoto Player, was secured on the basis that the brand would be refreshed

Was deemphasizing the Kate Greenaway Medal and making it just one of “The Carnegies” the price that CILIP and the working party had to pay to close the deal with Yoto? Instead of “elevating the illustration medal” as they claim, does this not just make it harder to stand out from the medal for writing? The medal for writing has historically always had a higher profile, but the awards were in no way dependent on each other. This is just my reading of it and I welcome being corrected, but my concern that an audio device sponsoring an illustration medal did not make complete sense seems to be borne out, it is easier to overlook it as the Carnegie Medal for Illustration than it was when it was the separate Kate Greenaway Medal.

The Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal were always two distinct awards and now the line between has been blurred and I feel that with this rebrand something is being lost.

It also looks as if The Carnegies are being positioned to appeal more to children. Historically the awards previously known as the Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals were awarded to writers for an outstanding book & artists recognizing distinguished illustration in a book (both for children). In the past judges have seldom voted for the popular choice, and many librarians who ran shadowing schemes complained that the books awarded the medals were often a hard sell to young readers who often selected other titles as shadower’s choices.

My feeling looking to the future is that there will be more changes coming down the pipeline, possibly splitting the Carnegie Medal for Writing into an older & younger award. This has always been rejected by the Working Party and everyone involved with the awards, but with the scale of the current changes, it remains impossible to rule out.

The muted response to this news on social media is also very telling; in the past, updates and changes to the awards have been hotly debated and discussed, but this refresh appears to have been received with little warmth, however, only time will tell as the news trickles down to everyone with an interest in the awards.

Something else I have noticed, the website for the Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals as they were ended in a .org.uk indicating that it was a not-for-profit organization or charity. The address https://carnegiegreenaway.org.uk now points to https://yotocarnegies.co.uk/  a new website ending in .co.uk –  denoting a commercial domain address more commonly used by businesses. The http://yotocarnegies.org.uk/ address currently remains unclaimed.

Only time will tell if these changes will lead to a watering down of the awards and if they will move in a populist choice direction, becoming one of many book awards or if they will maintain their position as “the one that all authors and illustrators want to win. Indeed throughout their history the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals have provided a literary standard by which other books are measured…

I may be wrong, it is possible that I have been involved with the awards for so long that I am unable to see the good things that this may bring. Do you disagree with me? Let me know via editor@teenlibrarian.co.uk

Also if any of of past and present awards judges from YLG that participated in the consultation group are interested in chatting to me (in confidence) please drop me an e-mail

The Worlds We Leave Behind

An extraordinary story about friendship and betrayal. Of revenge and retribution but also redemption. Perfect for 11+ readers who enjoy Stranger Things.

Hex never meant for the girl to follow him and his friend Tommo into the woods. He never meant for her to fall off the rope swing and break her arm. When the finger of blame is pointed at him, Hex runs deep into the woods and his fierce sense of injustice leads him to a strange clearing in the woods – a clearing that has never been there before – where an old lady in a cottage offers him a deal. She’ll rid the world of those who wronged him and Hex can carry on his life with them all forgotten and as if nothing ever happened. But what Hex doesn’t know is someone else has been offered the same deal.

When Hex’s best friend Tommo wakes up the next day, he is in a completely different world but he only has murmurs of memories of the world before. Moments of deja vu that feel like Tommo’s lived this day before. Can Tommo put the world right again? Back to how it was? Or can he find a way to make a new world that could be better for them all?

Bloomsbury Children’s Books

The Song From Somewhere Else is a truly beautiful book, in all senses of the word, so when I saw that A.F. was writing another story set in that world also illustrated by Levi Pinfold I was a mixture of “YES PLEASE” and “how can it possibly compare…”. I needn’t have worried though. The Worlds We Leave Behind is completely different but equally enthralling. I asked A.F. Harrold a few questions:

The Worlds We Leave Behind is wonderfully philosophical. I love how you don’t talk down to young readers while also pitching it so as to not go over their heads, do you ever have ideas that you think are too complicated to include in a children’s book?

I imagine there probably are ideas ‘too complicated’ for a kids book, but, much more importantly, there are a million ideas that are perfect. And some of them might look complicated, until you begin to think about them. 

I think about the science ideas a writer like Christopher Edge builds his stories around, or Dom Conlon’s Meet Matilda Rocket Builder – perfect books with big complicated ideas behind them. Of course, those are scientific/engineering ideas, and your question began with a thought about philosophy, but I think it’s much the same, and of course, the scientific explanations throw up ethical and psychological questions. Take Chris’s The Many Worlds of Albie Bright – it shows how quantum physics, alternate universes and ethics are all intertwined, and does it with heart and love. 

It’s important to remember that we swim in a soup, where none of these subjects and ideas are separate, it’s all mixed up together and you can’t look at one ingredient without bumping into another.

Did you know before you started writing TWWLB that it would be one for Levi Pinfold to illustrate?

Yes. It took a long time for me to find out what I could write next, and the key turned and the spark ignited the moment I realised I could just take a character from our previous book together (The Song from Somewhere Else) and continue their story. And so, since it was continuing that world we’d already spent time in, I wrote it with Levi in mind. That isn’t the same as knowing your publisher will agree to let Levi illustrate it when you hand the story in, however. We were fortunate, though, that my editor, Zöe Griffiths, agreed with me that it ought to be Levi. And even more fortunately, when they approached Levi, he said yes, I think without having actually read it, because we didn’t have a final draft at that point. 

Because Levi is such an amazing and in demand illustrator, we knew we had to wait a while before The Worlds We Leave Behind would reach his desk, so Zöe and I were able to work on the story and the text for two years before it reached the final final state. After the first year (draft 3) the story was pretty much what’s in the book, and Levi was in the UK for a rare visit (he lives in Australia), and he came over to my house one afternoon, and we sat in my shed (office at the end of the garden), and I was able to sit with him and tell him the story as we drank tea and looked out at the bare trees. I enjoyed that very much, because he is so delightful a person, so engaged and so talented. He’s about ten years younger than me, but our growing up experiences, in small English towns, kicking around down the rec, were similar enough that we seem to fit together well, and he understands what I’m on about. And then, after that storytelling session, he flew back to Australia and within a couple of weeks the first lockdown was announced and our world changed forever. Zöe and I finessed the 4th draft, the final version, into shape over that summer (while also seeing me and Mini Grey’s The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice to press – a quite different adventure), and it was only the following February (2021) that Levi got to read it (having heard it almost exactly a year before). 

It was a long process, but it gave everything time to settle into place, all the words, all the action and then, finally, all the pictures.

How soon in the draft process did you get him involved? Did you note what scenes you would like to have illustrated or leave it entirely up to him?

So, as you see from the previous answer, he wasn’t actually involved (as in drawing), until the writing was all done, but that is misleading, because he was involved from the moment I hit the first key on the keyboard and wrote the word ‘Hex’ at the top of the page. (My works in progress are usually just named for the character, titles are a pain in the bum to be thought about years down the line!) Having done The Song From Somewhere Else together I knew the style Levi draws this world in, I had an idea of how it looks because he’s already shown that to me, and so I was able to write with the thought in my head, ‘What would I like to see Levi draw?’ and so that led us into the forest, that gave us big dogs, that gave us brooding shadows and a fairytale cottage… What would you like to see Levi draw next? 

And so, when the time came for illustrating, an editor will normally give an illustrator a brief – we’d like pictures of this scene, that scene and this character, and so on (spaced out evenly through the story, one per chapter, or whatever). But with Levi (and with Emily Gravett, in the books I’ve done with them), because these are intended to be highly illustrated and because the illustrator is of such quality (and know what they’re doing and won’t be daft and draw thirty pictures for the first ten pages and nothing for the next 200!), I think we’re much more inclined to just let them go and do what they want. 

Of course, the process involves roughs and we might make suggestions at that stage, nudging things this way or that, and we get a feel for the shape of it and ask for scenes that have been missed and so on. And then you get the great joy of seeing final art come in, and then I’m able to do little edits in the text to match the things Levi’s drawn better (Hex in jeans, rather than shorts, for example), and I couldn’t be happier seeing what my little words inspired from his magnificent fingers! Gosh but he’s a master.

Interior illustration by Levi Pinfold

Do you have different routines when writing a novel vs poetry, or humour vs atmosphere? Do you favour one over the other?

When I’m working on a (first draft of a) novel, I do try to do something every day. I discovered for this one that getting up very early and writing before going for my daily walk, before looking at e-mails or the internet, was the way to go. I’d come down to my shed, through the silent sunlit morning (it was April/May 2019, and beautiful), put on Morton Feldman’s Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello and spend some time with Hex and Tommo and the others, and then I can get on with my day. And if I’ve done that, made that early start, I can usually return to the manuscript during the day and do some more. 

If, on the other hand, I have let the world step in front first (opened an e-mail, written an invoice…) then I’ll never be able to settle to writing that day. (Editing and rewriting, that’s easy to dip in and out of, but writing new stuff… that’s hard and fickle.) Poems, on the other hand, because of their snackability, they’re much easier to sit down and have a go at at any time. Part of the joy is, of course, that if it doesn’t work you can throw it away and you’ve only lost half an hour, and if it did work… brilliant, you’ve got a new thing in your hand and in your head, that didn’t exist before! There’s a lot less pressure on any individual poem to be good, and so it’s much easier to simply give it a go.

What kind of events do you most enjoy doing?

I like performing poems and being funny. Comedy for kids without the safety net.

What are you reading at the moment and who would you recommend it to?

I’ve just read Gareth P Jones’ No True Echo (2015) (which I read about in a review of TWWLB), a great mind-bending alternative world time travel looping story, for (I guess) maybe 11+ with a good grip on what’s real. Then I read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson  (1977), which I’d seen the movie of, but had never read, and it was as moving and heart-sinking as I expected, and typically and nostalgically American – it’s not my culture, not my world, but it’s so familiar from TV and films – which I’d recommend for anyone with a heart who yearns for freedom. And I’ve just finished Wolfstongue by Sam Thompson and illustrated by Anna Tromop (2021), which is your perfectly normal boy-meets-talking-wolf-and-rescues-it-from-the-talking-foxes-and-finds-his-life’s-turned-upside-down-and-he’s-involved-in-a-mythic-battle-underground sort of story, for any kid who likes that sort of thrilling adventure.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve written a sort of creepy ghost story story, which I’m waiting to hear if my publisher likes enough to publish. Fingers crossed.

A.F. Harrold
Levi Pinfold

Thank you to Nina Douglas for organising a review copy and the opportunity for a Q&A with A.F. Harrold. THE WORLDS WE LEAVE BEHIND was published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books on 4 August (9781526623881/ £12.99 hardback).

Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild

Utterly Dark has a special connection to the sea. But it is tested more than ever before, this autumn on the island of Summertide. Accompanying her uncle as he explores mysterious Summertide, Utterly is witness to strange happenings in the woods. Deep, old magic abounds, and threatens to steal those she loves most. Utterly must face truths about what lies beneath the land, and in her own past, if she is to save anyone. And she must make a sacrifice to the sea . . . An enchanting story of nature, magic and friendship, from the renowned author of Mortal Engines.

David Fickling Books
Cover art by Paddy Donnelly

This is the sequel to the equally brilliant UTTERLY DARK AND THE FACE OF THE DEEP, from one of my very favourite authors, Philip Reeve. I was thrilled to be given the chance to ask him a few questions!

Utterly lives in a magical but realistic historical period, how much research did you do to make it historically accurate?

Not very much, because Wildsea, where most of Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep is set, is an imaginary island. I always knew it was somewhere you’d get to on a sailing ship rather than a car ferry, so I set the story in a sort of vaguely olden-days 18th or early 19th Century period, and gradually as I wrote I worked out it was happening in 1810.

So that means that Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild is happening in 1811, and a lot of it happens on a different island called Summertide, which is a bit bigger and a bit more developed, so I did have to do a bit more research about how grand country houses ran in those days, etc – but of course, if I get something wrong, or want to change something, I can always say, ah, well, they did things a bit differently on Summertide…. 

And a lot of the research I do doesn’t end up in the actual book. One of the characters in Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild is an ex-soldier called Figgy Dan, so I spent some time working out when he did his soldiering and what battles he had fought in, but actually that’s not important for the story, you just need to know he’s been a soldier. So the research is important in helping me understand the characters and get a sense of their world, but I try not to let too much of it clutter up the finished book.

Writing for younger readers with Sarah McIntyre must be very different, has working as part of a duo changed the way you approach your solo novels?

It’s not that different, because it’s still about inventing a story and putting it into words, but it’s much more fun, because we get to share ideas and make each other giggle a lot. But I do find ideas seep across from one to the other – I think Utterly Dark and her home in the Autumn Isles has developed out of the same ideas that we used in our first book, Oliver and the Seawigs. And Sarah now gets to read all my solo books while I’m writing them, and we talk about them together, so she’s a big influence on them all. 

All of your solo series are set in such different landscapes with unique characters, do they evolve together or do you spend time worldbuilding before setting to writing story?

I tend to think the best way to do world-building is to just start writing. A lot of people think that if you’re writing about an imaginary world you start off by making a map and then work out its history and language and then set a story there, but I’m not interested in doing that. With the Utterly books I started with a name – ‘Sundown Watch’ – which I knew was the name of a house. And obviously the people who lived in it were watching for something, so I put it on a cliff top, and then I decided the cliff top was on an island, and I drew a tiny little sketch map, but there were no other names on it. Then as I wrote I gradually filled in the map, and changed it a bit to suit the story, and worked out this island had neighbouring islands, so a whole world gradually arranged itself around the characters.

What is your favourite thing or person from any of your stories?

That’s a tricky one – I’m very fond of Utterly herself, and also of Wildsea, and Sundown Watch – I’d like to live there!

Without spoilers, how far ahead have you planned in Utterly’s story? Will it be a trilogy?

I’m not very good at planning! But I think there will be at least three books about Utterly, and I think I could tell many more stories set in the Autumn Isles, either about her and her friends, or with different characters, in different periods of history.

What are you reading at the moment and who would you recommend it to?

I’m reading Roderick Random, by Tobias Smollett. I bought it because I found a second hand edition with lovely woodcut illustrations, but it turns out to be a really good read. It’s one of those rambling, boisterous, 18th Century novels where a young man goes off into the world and has all sorts of adventures. I’m not sure I’d recommend it unless that’s your sort of thing – I guess the language is quite difficult, but you get your head round it after a few pages. And it’s good research for the Utterly books in a way, because there are lots of little details about life in the Eighteenth Century – a bit before Utterly’s time, but people in Wildsea are old-fashioned so they’d probably still talk the same way. 

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on a third Utterly Dark book, and a new series with Sarah McIntyre, Adventuremice. And I’ve also decided to make a short film, just as a kind of hobby. It’s an Arthurian fantasy so my writing room is filling up with costumes and bits of armour and I spend all my spare time doodling storyboards and making props – it’s makes a nice change from just writing!

Philip Reeve (photo credit: Sarah Reeve)

Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild by Philip Reeve | David Fickling Books | 1st September | £7.99 | Paperback

Philip Reeve grew up in Brighton. He has been writing stories since he was five years old, but the first one to be published was Mortal Engines which won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and Blue Peter Book Award. Philip has also provided cartoons and jokes for many books, including Horrible Histories, and co-created young fiction with illustrator Sarah McIntyre.

www.philipreeve.com | Twitter: @philipreeve1 | Instagram: thesolitarybee | #UtterlyDark

David Fickling Books | Twitter / Instagram: @DFB_Storyhouse | davidficklingbooks.com

If You Read This

When Brie was younger, her mama used to surprise her with treasure hunts around their island town. After she died three years ago, these became Brie’s most cherished memories.

Now, on her twelfth birthday, her mama has another surprise: a series of letters leading Brie on one last treasure hunt.

The first letter guides Brie to a special place.

The next urges her to unlock a secret.

And the last letter will change her life forever.

Pushkin Press

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU MANGOES was one of my favourite books of last year, so I jumped at the chance to read IF YOU READ THIS. Always a worry, reading the follow-up to something brilliant, but I wasn’t disappointed and was very pleased to ask the author, Kereen Getten, a few questions!

What part of ‘If You Read This’ came to you first – the letters or the character of Brie?

I really liked the idea of a treasure hunt, and the character going on a journey of self discovery. The idea was very vague and so I started to think about Brie, who she was and why she would go on a treasure hunt so although the idea of the letters came first, Brie had to be developed before the letters were explored.

I love the Caribbean settings of both your novels, really evocative, are any of the scenes based on particular locations you know well?

When I was eleven years old, we returned to Jamaica for eighteen months. We moved into a gated community called Silver Sands and that’s where I loosely based where Brie lived. Also, Brim’s town is also loosely based on a small seaside town, on the western tip of Jamaica. The rugged, twisty road to Brim’s house is based on the actual road that leads into a rocky landscape overlooking the sea.

Have you thought about writing a story set in the UK?

I have! I actually wrote a short story for Happy Here anthology set in the UK it was called HOME. My historical novel Two Sisters is based in Jamaica and the UK and I’m definitely looking to do more UK based stories in the future. [CF: Oh, of course, I read and loved TWO SISTERS, a brilliant historical novel in the Scholastic VOICES series]

What kind of events do you like to do with readers?

As a pandemic author, I really am just beginning to do in person events, but I have enjoyed many virtual events where I have spoken to multiple schools at the same time. Nothing beats meeting readers face to face though, and some of my favourite moments are talking to readers about my books.

Have you had much feedback from young readers?

Yes! Sometimes I get social media messages from them or their parents after they’ve read my book, or after an event. With Mangoes there were a lot of conversations around the twist! Which I loved.

What are you reading at the moment and who would you recommend it to?

I’ve just finished Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. A wonderful book about a young girl’s journey to mending her relationship with her mother while chasing a fox’s journey across the arctic.  I would recommend it to readers who love visual descriptions, stories about relationships, immigration and nature

What are you working on now?

I am currently editing a short fantasy book out next year titled Ada Rue and the Banished about a young girl who moves to a town where magical people are banished from society. I am also editing a detective series where a group of friends in the Caribbean form a detective agency to solve mysteries but they’re terrible at it!

Kereen Getten (photo credit Amy Spinks)

Thank you to Kereen for answering my questions, and Pushkin Press for sending me a review copy and organising the q&a. IF YOU READ THIS is out on 1st September 2022!