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Sophie McKenzie Interview

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Sophie McKenzie’s new YA thriller, Split Second, explores a social and economic landscape where deprivation, uncertainty and fear drive a resurgence in extremist politics.

Here she is interviewed by the ReadingZone website:

Q: Why did you decide to turn to politics for your new thriller?

A: I saw two TV documentaries. One was about the economic situation today in parts of the Eurozone. It looked at the rise of extremist political parties in times of economic hardship and showed how such parties often gather support by, among many other things, offering free food handouts. The other documentary was an exploration of Hitler’s rise to power, with a focus on his personal appeal to millions of ordinary people.

I wanted to write about what can happen when austerity gets really tough and citizens lose faith in established governments. My aim was that everything in Split Second should have really happened – or be happening – somewhere in the real world.

SchoolZone.

More Than This by Patrick Ness – Guardian Review

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Guardian Review

More Than This by Patrick Ness, reviewed by Tony Bradman

GuardianPatrick Ness is very, very good at beginnings. I thought it would be hard to match the opening line of The Knife of Never Letting Go: “The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs dont got nothing much to say.” But he managed it in the second and third books of the Chaos Walking trilogy, as well as in the multi-award-winning A Monster Calls. Now hes outdone himself. His latest novel for teenagers starts with a sentence that had me instantly hooked: “Here is the boy, drowning.”
… …
I have a feeling More Than This might cause a few collywobbles among some grown-ups because it features a gay relationship, so I suppose that puts it firmly in Young Adult territory. There’s nothing explicit, though, just Ness’s trademark tenderness for his characters, good and bad. It does have a couple of flaws – it’s a bit long and the characters talk a lot, especially in the second half. That’s OK, though, because what they say is interesting even when it slows things down.

And yes, Ness is very, very good at endings, too – this one has a corker. I might just have to start a collection of his last lines, as well as his first.

via More Than This by Patrick Ness – review | Books | The Guardian.

Children’s Book Blog: Ask the author – Julia Green

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Julia Green, YA author and also course director for the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University, interviewed by Rebecca Davies for The Independent Children’s Book Blog.
Follow the link under the extract for the full interview…

The plot is extremely character-driven compared to a lot of other recent novels for young people. What advice would you give to any budding authors hoping to write similarly character-driven stories?

Yes, it’s my intention to write character-driven stories, partly because so many contemporary novels are driven by plot. I want to speak up for the ‘quieter’ kind of fiction which deals with the intense, inner world of teenagers, where everything is felt so deeply and intensely.

For me, that’s the great thing about this time of life, when everything’s in transition, and when we are working out who, and how, to ‘be’. These are the sort of novels I loved when I was a young adult, and still do, actually. Stories that deal with relationships, emotions, real life.

To write a story this way, you have to spend time getting to know the character before you begin writing. I make notes. I have a list of questions I ask myself, about who she is, what’s happened to her before the story begins, what she loves, hates, fears. Her memories and dreams and secrets. What she wants. I do the same for all the characters. It helps me work out what motivates them. The story comes out of that.

via Children’s Book Blog: Ask the author – Julia Green | Rebecca Davies | Independent Arts Blogs.

Guardian Review

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Guardian Review

Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper, reviewed by Marcus Sedgwick

The two lives told in Ghost Hawk are not separate entities, but are skilfully entwined, just like the saplings that made the handle of the tomahawk; and the overall effect is both powerful and convincing. Like Boxers & Saints, its ultimate power is to help the reader understand that no conflict is black and white, and that there are very few certainties in the world. “Treasure your uncertainty,” says Little Hawk to John Wakeley, as Cooper gently reminds us that perhaps the world would be a kinder place if fewer people were so sure of their beliefs.Moving and long lasting, this is rich storytelling, and is probably Susan Coopers finest work so far, which is something coming from the writer who brought us The Dark is Rising all those years ago.

via Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper – review | Books | The Guardian.

Guardian Review

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Guardian Review

After Iris by Natasha Farrant, reviewed by SF Said

It is hard to think of another writer for young readers who represents technology so seamlessly and vividly. It is not a surface detail; it is part of the fabric of her characters’ world. And if Farrant’s writing never goes as deep, emotionally, as [Hilary] McKay’s or [Dodie] Smith’s, it is in the depiction of this fabric that she excels. Her cultural references are telling and accessible. This is a story where teenage girls don’t face vampires, but use Twilight to think about real life; where teen pregnancy is understood primarily through films and books. “I’ve seen Juno, I’ve read Dear Nobody.”

Farrant’s depiction of the wider context also feels very real. Her London is lived-in and solid: the Notting Hill cafes, the anarchic free school, the claustrophobic tube ride. Even Blue’s parents’ back story feels spot-on (met at Glastonbury in the mid-90s, bonded over a Tarantino double bill). And if it is disconcerting for this reviewer to find the mid-90s treated as an ancient historical period, well, that is itself true to contemporary teen experience.

Of course, it is impossible to know how well such cultural and technological references will date. But right now, they are refreshing to see, and are key to how Farrant injects new life into an old form.

via After Iris by Natasha Farrant – review | Books | The Guardian.

 

“There’s a lot of lonely people out there…” – Annabel Pitcher | Waterstones Blog

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From the Waterstones blog, a video interview with Annabel Pitcher, whose second novel, Ketchup Clouds, has been the Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month for July.
I’m rather ashamed to say that I hadn’t read either of Pitcher’s very successful novels until this week. I am still to read her debut My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece, but I am currently halfway through Ketchup Clouds and can see why there has been so much excitement about her work.

Annabel Pitcher spoke to us about how she drew on her own experience of writing to a Death Row inmate to create her award-winning novel Ketchup Clouds and gave a sneak preview of her next book, Silence is Goldfish….

In Ketchup Clouds, we meet Zoe (although that’s not her real name), a teenager who has “got away” with murdering a boy. Wracked with guilt and having failed to confess to a priest, Zoe heeds the words of a nun and takes refuge in writing her wrong-doings to Mr Harris, a murderer on Death Row….

Having won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize back in March, Ketchup Clouds is our Children’s Book of the Month for July.

via “There’s a lot of lonely people out there…” – Annabel Pitcher | Waterstones Blog.

Observer Reviews – YA/Teen

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Young Adult Books

reviewed by Geraldine Brennan

The eccentric family drama has been a compelling fictional formula since Little Women, and Natasha Farrant’s [The Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby:] After Iris (Faber £6.99) has the wit and charm of Hilary McKay’s Exiles books with the added emotional depth of Annabel Pitcher’s My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece.

via Fiction for teenagers – reviews | Books | The Observer.

Indigo Acquisition

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INDIGO ACQUIRES TWO FURTHER NOVELS IN PAULA WESTON’S REPHAIM SEQUENCE

shadows

In a deal for UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding ANZ and North America, Jenny Glencross, Commissioning Editor at Indigo has acquired the third and fourth novels in the REPHAIM sequence by Australian author, Paula Weston from Jane Finegan at Lutyens & Rubinstein, on behalf of Text Publishing.

The first novel, SHADOWS, was published in January 2013, and the second, HAZE, follows in October 2013. The third and fourth novels, newly acquired, will be set for publication in 2014 and 2015.

Paula Weston is a Brisbane-based author and co-owner of a two-woman writing/design consultancy. She is an avid reader and blogger and a huge fan of Australian literature and fantasy/paranormal stories.

Jenny Glencross says of the new deal…
“I’m so thrilled we’re acquiring more books in this fantastic series – not least because I’m desperate to find out what happens next. The reviews of Paula’s first book, Shadows, speak for themselves. These books really are a cut above the rest of the angel books out there and Paula is a YA writer to be reckoned with.”

Book prize lets down the young, says NZ Herald News editorial

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The New Zealand Daily Herald has criticised, in unequivocal editorial, the selection of Into The River by Ted Dawe as New Zealnd Post Children’s Book Award winner:

Good, well-written stories that go to the heart of a reader and touch the truth of any human experience, including sex, can help a young mind rise above smut. That is why it is a worry when a national award for children’s books is given to a novel that needs to carry a warning.

Some booksellers, we report today, are refusing to display Into the River by Ted Dawe, which took top prize in the recent New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. One explained that it was “unnecessarily graphic” and contained themes the bookseller considered inappropriate for young teenagers.

It contains obscenities and shock references that worthwhile literature does not need. We can only wonder what the judges were thinking, or how much worse the other entries could have been.

Nobody has to wonder at the embarrassment of the award organisers. Last week they sent out parental warning stickers to shops stocking the book, advising them to put it on its covers. The 2013 Kiwi Kids Good Book Guide lists it for children aged 13 and over but one national booksellers’ chain has told all its managers to mark it for over-15s.

The editorial ends, “Teenagers would never say so, but they do not want this sort of fare from their school any more than they would want it from their parents.

It is not prudish or patronising to maintain a certain standard, it is re-assuring them that quality exists and people they respect can recognise it. For many, their early teenage years might be the last in their lives when they read literature worthy of the name.

Reading it might not be easy but it can reward the effort with pleasure far exceeding anything that needs an age warning. The only warning that Dawe’s material really needs is that reading it almost certainly will be a waste of time.”

via Herald on Sunday editorial: Book prize lets down the young – Books – NZ Herald News.

Anne Fine: The caring champion of childhood – Features – Books – The Independent

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Feature article by Nick Tucker about Anne Fine, to coincide with publication of her new YA novel, Blood Family:

The author of over 50 children’s books, Anne Fine has now produced possibly her most contentious novel yet. Aimed at young adults, but reaching out to older readers too, Blood Family describes how young Eddie, along with his mentally destroyed mother, is locked away for four of his first seven years by his sadistic drunken father. It’s strong stuff from a writer who is never afraid to be outspoken, and our interview could go anywhere. A still youthful 65-year-old, she has travelled to London from Barnard Castle in County Durham, where she lives with her long-term partner Dick Warren. Settling down in a dark tea room on Kings Cross Station, within a moment she is on her feet again when a neighbouring baby half-tips out of his pram. Would that some of the onlookers in her novel had shown a similar state of concern.

via Anne Fine: The caring champion of childhood – Features – Books – The Independent.