It’s World Book Day this week! And for the first time, I can say I write for children. My new kids’ book The Untameables, illustrated by the incredible Reena Makwana, will be published by Emma Press later this month. There’s still time to preorder directly from them if you want a lovely signed edition, or from your local bookshop. Being published by a small (but beautiful) indie press means preorders make a huge difference.
The book is aimed at older primary children, 7+, and would be ideal to read aloud to them as it has relatively short chapters, delightful illustrations, and lots of cliffhangers and talking points, and is full of myth, metaphor and storytelling that I hope adults will enjoy too. It’s based on Arthurian legends, but the twist is that the knights of the round table are actually the bad guys, and our heroes are Roan and Elva, two children who work below stairs at Camelot. When Roan’s mum gets sick, they set off on a quest to get to the holy grail before the knights do…
The Untameables is about whose stories get told. About the importance of questioning the narratives of those in power. About how bad guys always think their good. It’s also about poisoned rivers, extinctions, and the danger of valuing gold over nature. It’s in praise of wildness and rebellion. It’s anti-violence and war. I really do believe the stories we tell our children are important, and this novel is me trying to put that into practice as fully as I can. (Though also it’s funny, and features unicorns and elves).
Sophie Anderson, Author of The Snow Girl and The House with Chicken Legs says: ‘It’s a dark, witty, subversive and hopeful tale of challenging violence and oppression, that champions kindness over cruelty, with some wonderful young (unlikely) heroes who stole my heart’.
I’ve already had the pleasure of a bookshop-tour with my publishers, taking in the LRB Bookshop, Chener Books, Dulwich Books, Village Books, my local shop Review and the wonderful Moon Lane children’s bookshop, where I’m pleased to say we will be for a workshop on the 23rd of March, where I will do a bit of storytelling and Reena will help the children draw their own Untameables (booking opens soon). This Friday I’m also going into my kids’ school to run some creative-writing workshops, where the children will draw on medieval bestiaries, alliterative verse and riddle poems – schoolteachers do get in touch if your school is covering the Anglo-Saxons and you’d like me to do similar. On the 18th of April we’re going to have an online launch on Nikki Gamble’s podcast ‘In the Reading Corner’. And our first review is up at School Reading List where it was also a March book club pick.
I was also happy to be asked by the fabulous Authorfy to do a little video for World Book Day so you can see me answer 5 questions here, along with 99 other absolute children’s book legends (David McKee! Jeffrey Boakye! Kiran Milwood Hargrave! Louie Stowell Nadia Shireen! Rob Biddulph! And many more favourites).
More on my adult book The Modern Fairies soon, but for now I can’t wait for you to meet Roan and Elva as they set off on their quest. Who knows, next year maybe there will even be a little Roan or Elva or Lady of the Lake or Green Knight in their costumes on World Book Day…