A school meeting prevented me from attending last night's launch party for Steve Voake's debut novel The Dreamwalker's Child. It has been noted that the author is headteacher of a primary school and "in order to find the time to write the book, he used to get up at 3am".
Not that this is going to prevent Voake being asked the question, "How did you find the time?" Somehow it seems that those following occupations other than teaching - lawyers, doctors, MPs - are allowed to write books in their free time, but teachers, of course, are not supposed to have any free time, not if they're doing their job properly. I sometimes suspect some such angle of thought lies behind the selfsame question when it is addressed to me, apropos this website.
So I applaud Voake for demonstrating that a headteacher can have a creative life beyond the school gates. I would love to have met up with him last night and hope that he's busy with another book.
The Dreamwalker's Child is a refreshingly 'young' fantasy in which characters climb into the heads of insects and fly them as if they were fighter jets. There is a baddy out to destroy the human race. A young hero thrust into the role of saviour, and a feisty female accomplice. It's refreshingly straightforward; strongest in the action scenes; and weakest in some of the long conversations between Sam and Skipper that aim to give the book a patina of environmental concern.
