Anita Loughrey's blog. This is my journal about my experiences and thoughts on writing. As well as news about me and my books, it includes writing tips, book reviews, author interviews and blog tours.
For more information about me and my books see my website: www.anitaloughrey.com. Follow me on Twitter @amloughrey, Facebook @anitaloughrey.author and on Instagram @anitaloughrey
Today I am hosting a new regular feature on my blog. I will be spotlighting some awesome children’s books each week. To kick us off I am going to shine a spotlight on A Very Curious Christmas by Maddy Moate and Paul Boston. This hardback book was published by Puffin Books on the 12th October.
Join CBBC presenter and YouTuber Maddie Moate as she uncovers the secret science and history of Christmas, with enough festive facts and holiday activities to keep the whole family entertained.
Have you ever wondered where Christmas trees originated?
Or why Father Christmas wears red?
Why crackers go bang?
Where gingerbread first came from?
Or even why brussels sprouts make you fart?
Maddie Moate is here to answer these questions and many more, from how toys work to where gingerbread comes from. You’ll explore the science behind fairy lights, snowflakes, reindeer knees and holly leaves. And you’ll also discover how different people around the world and in space celebrate the Christmas period, and the curious history behind festive traditions. Prepare to be amazed at the wackiest Christmas facts – including floating Christmas trees, roller-skating worshippers and festive underwear.
Plus, at the back of the book you’ll find wintery activities and craft ideas, including how to make Snowy Owl Pinecones and a Folded Magazine Christmas Tree, to get you in the holiday spirit.
Maddie said:
Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year, so I thought it would be fun to find out as much about it as I possibly could. I want to know why we celebrate Christmas and do some of the curious things we do, such as hang stockings, eat Brussels sprouts and pull crackers that go BANG!
Maddie Moat
Maddie Moate is a BAFTA winning presenter and YouTuber, passionate about curiosity and inspiring children with the wonders of the world. She is the host of the BAFTA nominated TV series “Maddie’s Do You Know?”, Sony Music’s podcast “Maddie’s Sound Explorers” and presented BBC Earth’s “Earth Unplugged”.
Maddie’s YouTube channel is full of fun, family-focused science videos that have taken her on curious adventures around the world. Her channel is also home to the wildly popular series “Let’s Go Live with Maddie and Greg”, a live family science show which has helped countless families with home schooling since lockdown began in 2020.
Keep an eye out for my review of A Very Curious Christmas by Maddy Moate and Paul Boston next week.
I would like to thank Antonia Wilkinson and Puffin Books for organising me a review copy. Thank you,
Today is my stop on the 21 Miles by Nicola Garrard book tour. My stop on the blog tour takes the form of a book review.
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Title: 21 Miles
Written by: Nicola Garrard
Cover Designed by: James Nunn
Cover Illustration by: Olivia Anthony
Published by: Hoperoad Publishing
Gritty realism is not the usual type of book I read. I am more of a fantasy sci-fi fan, but 21 Miles is a compelling read and I would highly recommend it. This is the type of book that once you start it is hard to put down not only because of the vivid characters that jump off the page but because you do not want to leave the main protagonist Donald (Donnie) Sampson alone in case he gets hurt again.
Rather than a sequel 21 Miles is another harrowing chapter in Donny’s life. Nicola Garrard’s first book was about the beginning of his life in foster care when he was fifteen and doing work experience on the Union Canal. Donny learns the network goes through 29 locks so ‘borrows’ a canal boat to go back to Hackney to meet his mum who is due to be released from prison for drug offences.
The second book, 21 Miles, jumps to when he is 18 and is just as insightful, thought-provoking and emotionally powerful as the first.
Donny is still in foster care in Hertfordshire and compared to his life before where he was caught up in a London gang he has hit the jackpot. He has a caring, loving foster mum and is doing extremely well at school and about to apply to universities to study History. Life is great that is until he is persuaded by his friend, Zoe, to go on a day trip twenty-one miles over the English Channel to Calais so she can practice her French and he can learn about the French-British History for his exam.
In Calais Donny is tricked into giving away his passport, arrested by racist French police as a ‘migrant’ and escapes to join a group of teenage refugees living rough in the dunes east of Calais.
With hints of the Windrush Scandal where in 2018 people were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and in at least 83 cases the UK Home Office wrongly deported them; 21 Miles is an exciting contemporary adventure that will have readers turning the pages until it finally leaves you with a sense of hope despite the bitter adversity and injustice he has witnessed and lived through.
Advertised as suitable as a PSHE/English classroom resource and for discussions around Black History Month.
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Nicola Garrard has taught English in secondary schools for twenty-three years, including fifteen years at an Islington comprehensive. Her first novel, 29 Locks, was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and the Mslexia Children’s Novel competition, and longlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2022 and the Berkshire Book Award. It was picked by Suzi Feay in the Financial Times as one of their ‘Best Books of 2021’. This is her second book.
Nicola Garrard said:
“In 2014 I read a news article about the suffering of separated child refuges in Calais, just 21 miles from our coast. I started to collect donations of food and clothing with the help of other parents. I filled my small campervan and took these essentials to Calais a number of times. There, I volunteered with a grassroots French refugee charity. On one occasion, I met a small thirteen-year-old Eritrean girl in Calais who begged me to take her to England where she had family. Fearing for her safely, I desperately wanted to help. But I didn’t agree to take her. People-smuggling is against the law: I might have lost my career, been fined, and sent to prison. It was the right decision. But after we lost touch, I was left with the ‘what if’ of her request.
Since 29 LOCKS was published, readers often ask me what happens next to Donny. He remains so alive for me, and so I decided to connect these two stories of dislocation and separation, and ask myself what can we learn from teenagers? The result is 21 MILES.”
Nicola Garrard talking about her inspiration for 21 Miles
She has appeared at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, Chichester Festival and Petworth Festival Literary Week and on BBC Radio London. She gives regular talks for schools, libraries and colleges (including for World Book Day), as well as prisons. Her words and poetry have been published in The Frogmore Papers magazine, IRON Press Publishing, Mslexia magazine, The Guardian and the Writers & Artists Yearbook Guide to Getting Published, and by the Poetry Book Society. Nicola lives in West Sussex with her wife, three children and a Jack Russell terrier called Little Bear. Her family is typical of modern Britain, with roots in England, Scotland, Hungary and Trinidad.
She currently works at Minority Matters, a charity which aims to empower young people from isolated communities through engagement projects, and is also an active supporter of the Trussell Trust.
Zoom! is about a boy and his grandad who stay up all night and go on a space adventure. This is part of several series of books about the boy and his grandad. Other books include Free, Wild, Lost and Found. They complement more boy and his grandad stories: Storm, Sun, Snow and Rain.
The underlying themes include using your imagination and creativity with an emphasis on recycling. Throughout these series the boy and his grandad use their resourcefulness to mend, recycle and re-use to create a variety of favourite vehicles which take them on exciting adventures around the world and beyond.
The relationship between the boy and his grandad is well thought out and established which make the story of Zoom relatable and touching. Together they find a broken telescope and set about fixing it with the materials they can find in the house and see astronauts in trouble on the moon. The two ingenious heroes build a space rocket out of cardboard boxes to save them and jet off from the roof.
The illustrations are full of intricate detail for young children to explore which showcase Sam Usher’s watercolour and technical drawing skills. The subtle colours add to the feeling of warmth and togetherness of the book.
Zoom! supports STEM learning from an early age by introducing science and engineering facts in an engaging way.
A heart-warming tale suitable for bedtime and reading aloud in the classroom. This book would be an excellent resource for stimulating craft work and also inspiring the children to create their own adventures.
You can buy copies of Zoom! by Sam Usher from your local bookshop, or online at uk.bookshop.org which supports local, independent bookshops.
Today I am pleased to have Jenny Moore here on my blog to tell us a little about her latest book due for release on January 28th 2024, Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea. I have read the first two books in the series and I am looking forward to reading the third instalment.
Jenny Moore’s numerous funny children’s books (writing as Jenny Moore) are published by Maverick Arts Publishing and New Frontier Publishing. She was the first UK winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition and was previously shortlisted for the Greenhouse Funny Prize.
Untitled design – 5
Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Guardian, Mslexia, The First Line and Short Fiction. She has also written psychological thrillers The Woman Before and The Wilderness Retreat which are published by HQ Digital, Harper Collins.
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Hi Jenny,
Welcome to my blog. To start please tell us a little about yourself and the inspiration for your Emba Oak series?
Many thanks for inviting me onto your blog.
I’m a full-time writer with two grown-up children and I’ve lived in Devon for the last twenty-four years. The brilliant editing team at Maverick approached me about writing a new middle grade series for them back in 2020 and I spent my summer holiday dreaming up potential ideas. We were due to go to Seattle and Vancouver that year, but due to the pandemic found ourselves in Wales, the beautiful land of dragons, instead. My thoughts turned dragonwards too and my first tentative ideas about a half-human, half-dragon girl flickered into life on the stunning Pendine Sands beach. A subsequent online meeting with the editing team helped hone those ideas into the beginnings of Emba’s story. It’s felt very much like a team project from the off which has been great.
How did you come up with the ingenious chapter headings? Talk us through your process when writing these.
I don’t remember many details from my Medieval English Literature paper at university, but the name ‘The Slough of Despond’ from Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress has always stuck with me. I suspect there might be a touch of Bunyan lurking behind chapters like ‘The Screeching Swamp of Slimebane Hollow’!
I love playing around with the sound of words and thought that the alliterative headings would add a tongue-in-cheek touch of drama. My trusty thesaurus has really come into its own while I’ve been working on this series, as you can probably guess! I usually start with the key chapter noun and then look for suitably dramatic, doom-filled words starting with the same letter.
I also had a lot of fun subverting the traditional chapter numbering system in places, by adding in unexpected extras such as ‘Almost Chapter One’, ‘Not Quite Chapter One’, and ‘Revisited Chapter Eight’.
How did you develop Emba’s character and her unique voice so readers are immediately inside her head?
I like to think of the opening passage of Emba Oak and the Terrible Tomorrows as the start of a film, with an omniscient voiceover setting the scene for a traditional fantasy adventure before the camera zooms in on Emba and her unique and slightly subversive place in the world of such adventures. By the time we hit ‘Actual Chapter 1’ the action has officially shifted to Emba’s point of view, with the reader following Emba’s own thoughts and fears in response to the strange thwumping noise coming from outside the cave.
I think early references to her physical and lifestyle quirks – the scales on arms and legs, the fact that she lives in a cave and eats squirrel stew, and the fact that she’s the only one who can see the ghostly dragon at the start of the book – all help to draw the reader in, while direct access to Emba’s internal thoughts add a level of intimacy and immediacy.
All your characters are so brilliant. Which of the characters in your Emba Oak series do you feel is most like you and why?
Thank you!
Hmm, that’s a tricky one. I think in terms of personality I’d have to go with Fred… a much younger version of Fred, obviously (!) and without her rather disgusting toenails. Shh, don’t tell her I said that!
I can also relate to the unnamed myopic man Emba meets on the way to Gravethorn Castle, and again at the Pool of Perilous Perception. I’d certainly struggle to see my one true desire/fear in the pool without my glasses on!
Thinking about the Emba Oak series, what was your hardest scene to write and why?
The final showdown in the crypt at the end of Emba Oak and the Beckoning Bones was a tricky one in terms of choreography (trying to keep tabs on who’s where, when) and there was lots of important information to fit in too without compromising the pace and drama of the scene. The editing team at Maverick were a big help here and after insightful feedback on the first couple of drafts it all came together.
Please tell us a little bit about Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea and how it continues on from Emba Oak and the Beckoning Bones. Is it the last book in the series?
Book 3, Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea, picks up immediately after the end of book 2. Emba’s adventures take her from the crypt all the way down to the titular screaming sea, with another dangerous rescue mission on the cards and the return of some old “friends” from Book 1. Readers can also look forward to some fun and feisty new characters, a terrible (and terrifying) sea monster and a whole new side to Emba’s developing powers. Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea is the penultimate book in the series and I’m currently working on edits for Emba’s fourth and final adventure.
What is the most valuable advice you’ve ever been given about writing?
I once read that instead of measuring your progress by comparing yourself to other writers, you should use your own previous career progress as a point of comparison, allowing yourself to see how far you’ve come in the last X number of years. Social media writing feeds are full of the high points of other people’s journeys – the agent signings, the big book deals, the competition wins – and it’s easy to feel despondent if your own journey isn’t at that stage yet. Looking back at your own progress is far healthier – if nothing else you’ll be a much stronger writer now than you were when you started.
I’m also very grateful to whoever first introduced me to the read-aloud feature on Word, which many of my writing friends refer to as a ‘robo read’ on account of the rather robotic delivery. Listening to your text being read aloud by someone else is invaluable at the proof-reading stage – it picks up all those little mistakes your eyes gloss over when you’re reading it yourself.
Is there anything else you would like to tell readers about Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea and the Emba Oak series?
Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea is due out at the end of January, with another fantastic, eye-catching cover by David Dean, and should be available to pre-order now. The series works best read in order but there’s still plenty of time to catch up with the story so far in the first two books! Meanwhile, Emba Oak and the Terrible Tomorrows has been longlisted for the James Reckitt Hull Children’s Book Award 2024, which I’m very excited about.
The Emba Oak series is also published in German by CBJ Kinder, Penguin Random House (translated by Anne Brauner), with a lovely new name for Emba: Ambra Flammenmädchen.
Thank you Jenny for taking the time to answer my questions and for giving us an insight into your unique chapter headings.
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To read my reviews of the previous books in the series take a look at:
You can buy copies of all of Jenny Moore’s books from your local bookshops, which are always top of the list – if they don’t have the EmbaOak books in stock they’ll be able to order them in for you. Or you can purchase direct from the publisher Maverick Publishing, otherwise Jenny recommends Hive books or any of the usual online retailers, such as uk.bookshop.org, an organisation with a mission to financially support local, independent bookshops..
I would like to thank Abi from Maverick Publishing for organising this interview for me. Thank you.
Another gripping mystery adventure and the first of a new historical series for middle grade. Mysteries at Sea – Peril on the Atlantic is set in 1936 and our main protagonist, Alice is aboard the Queen Mary. Her father is the Staff Captain and is determined the Queen Mary should win the Blue Riband race for the fastest Atlantic crossing.
Alice witnesses an attack on one of the crew but the adults are too busy to listen, which prompts Alice and her friend Sonny to investigate, revealing a sinister plot which will put the Queen Mary in danger. They both need all their courage and investigation skills to solve the mystery of who is responsible for the sabotage that will prevent them winning the competition.
Full of twists and turns, anonymous letters and secrets to uncover we eagerly follow Alice as meets long-lost relatives to learn about her past. The plot reminded me of an Agatha Christie, Miss Marple mystery but for younger readers. A M Howell has ensured there is an exciting event or mysterious occurrence at every turn of the page. I particularly found the plan of the Queen Mary a useful addition to the novel.
With excellent world building, Peril on the Atlantic is most definitely a thrilling middle-grade adventure with relatable characters, which young mystery sleuths will love.
You can buy copies of Mysteries at Sea – Peril on the Atlanticby A M Howell from your local bookshop, or online at uk.bookshop.org which supports local, independent bookshops.
I would like to thank Bee from Kaleidoscopic Tours for organising a review copy of the book for me. Thank you.
I am excited to be announce that today I am participating in the blog tour for Peter Bunzl and his latest book Glassborn, which has been beautifully illustrated by Katarzyna Doszla.
Glassborn was inspired by the imaginary worlds created by the Brontë sisters. When they were children Charlotte, Emily and Anne would make up stories about imaginary places called Glass Town, Gondal and Angria. They would write these stories down in fairy sized newspapers.
Here is the blurb to give you an idea of what the book is about:
Fairy Tree, tall and grand, open a path to Fairyland.
The year is 1826, and the four Belle siblings arrive at their new home in Tambling Village. Acton, the youngest member of the Belle family, immediately befriends a bright, red robin, leading him to discover a hidden key.
That night, when the clock strikes thirteen, Acton is called to Fairyland. For in finding the key, Acton has become the Chosen One and must steal the Glimmerglass Crown, for the cruel Fairy Queen.
When Cora, Elle and Bram realise their brother has been taken, they set out on a quest to rescue him. But Fairyland is full of dangers…and to overcome the Queen, and her deadly curse, they will need courage, cunning and a great deal of hope.
An enthralling tale of magic, riddles, and curses, from the bestselling author of The Cogheart Adventures.
Blurb for Glassborn by Peter Bunzl
Peter Bunzl is a bestselling children’s author who writes about clockwork, hope and magic. His books have been translated into 16 languages and sold nearly half-a-million copies worldwide. He’s been nominated for numerous awards, including: the Carnegie, the Waterstones Book Prize, the Branford Boase and the Books are My Bag Readers Award.
My stop on the tour takes the form of an author interview.
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Hi Peter,
Welcome to my blog. I am thrilled to be part of your blog tour. I interviewed you for Writers’ Forum in 2021, about your writing process for the Cogheart series so it is really exciting to be able to interview you today on my blog.
Thank you for having me, Anita. And thank you for all your support for my books over the years.
Glassborn is the second book in your Magicborn series and is due for release on the 9th November 2023. Please tell us a little about Glassborn and how it continues on from Magicborn. What has happened in that 100 year gap?
Glassborn is a sort-of sequel to Magicborn, but, as you mention, it takes place 100 years later. For that reason, the two can also be read as standalone books, although they have a lot of magical and Fairyland characters in common. In the fantasy world of Magicborn Fairies live for hundreds of years, which means that some of the villainous and heroic fae from the first book are able to appear in Glassborn too. There are also some family connections with the human characters in the first book, but I don’t want to say much about that as it would be spoilers for the story.
How did you create such fantastically devious villains for the Magicborn series? Talk us through the planning process for your antagonist.
Both books have two villains, which is fun as you can have slightly different plots going on simultaneously. In Glassborn the two villains are the Fairy Queen and the King of the Dead. The children must face off against both of them to succeed in their quest. Both villains are not just evil, but also clever and tricksy; as Fairies are in these kind of tales often are. For the children, facing them is not a battle of strength but a battle of wits and intelligence, and of riddles and stories. It was important to me that the children succeed on these terms as the four of them are characters who are into words and fairytales.
Was it important to you to get the historical details of the real world correct in the series and if so what research did you do to ensure accuracy, if not how did you get round it?
Magicborn is set in the early Georgian period. Partly at Kensington Palace where the main characters, Tempest and Thomas, are brought to meet the King when it is discovered they have magic powers. That story was broadly inspired by a real Georgian boy called Peter the Wild Boy who was brought to meet King George I. So I researched that history before writing the book.
When it came to Glassborn, I wanted the characters to be based on real Georgian children too. I had read about the Bronte siblings and the stories and imaginative worlds that they created with each other growing up. I thought they’d be great figures to base my child characters on as there was so much information about them and their childhoods. To research their world I went to the Bronte museum in Haworth, and I also read some of their juvenilia. That content wasn’t suitable for my story, but a lot of their wider world was.
How did your create your fairy realm and the magical rules within it?
My Fairyland is inspired by the tricksy fairy realms of British folklore and literature, most especially Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Suzanna Clarke. Magicborn was also inspired by The Ballad of Tam Lin, which is a Scottish folk tale and song. Glassborn was inspired by The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, one of my favourite stories growing up, and the idea of mixing the four Bronte children up with the Penvensies and seeing what happened. Angria meets Narnia, if you like.
Which part of Glassborn was the most fun to write?
I like the scenes with Acton in the Dead Lands the best. I suppose it is a little bit His Dark Materials, but really all of those ideas come from Greek Myths originally. Orpheus, or The Odyssey. It is a setting and a mythology I have wanted to write about for a long time, and I was able to get some really good twists and turns in there for this story, so I was very happy with how it panned out.
What is your favourite children’s book series, or series author?
I will say Narnia, because it was a favourite growing up, and it has a really big influence on this series of books. The imaginative world building in those books is great. The character stuff not so much. Also Diana Wynne Jones. I love her magical worlds, which are more quirky and chaotic than C. S. Lewis’s. And her child characters are often more real and nuanced.
What writing advice would you give to people aspiring to write a middle grade series?
Don’t set out thinking that’s what you’re going to do. By that I mean, even if the series will have the same heroes in every story, write each book as a closed stand alone, rather than part of a bigger arc. This is for two reasons. One, Children like complete stories, not massive cliff-hanger endings that they have to wait a year to resolve. Two, you may not sell all the book you have planned in your series, so you want each story to stand alone and not be reliant on a multi-book arc that you may not get to complete. You may also want to take the story in a different direction after a few books in a way that you didn’t foresee when you first pitched a series. So it is always better to keep the connection between stories loose.
Thank you Peter. It has been brilliant having you on my blog as part of your blog tour.
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You can find out more about Peter and his books on his website: www.peterbunzl.com or follow him on Instagram: @peterbunzlauthor and Tiktok: @peterbunzlauthor.
To follow the rest of the tour check out the schedule:
To read my interview with Peter Bunzl about his Cogheart series in Writers’ Forum take a look at: An interview with… Peter Bunzl
You can buy copies of all Peter Bunzl’s novels from your local bookshop, or online at uk.bookshop.org which supports local, independent bookshops.
I would like to thank Eve at Usborne Publishing for inviting me to take part in this tour. Thank you.
To celebrate the release of The Ice Children by M. G. Leonard tomorrow, Thursday 2nd November 2023, I have decided to post my review of this beautiful book.
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Title: The Ice Children
Written by: M.G. Leonard
Illustrated by: Penny Neville-Lee
Published by: Macmillan Children’s Books
I requested to read this book from NetGalley because I enjoyed M.G. Leonard’s Beetle Boy books and the Twitcher series. I was not disappointed as I was instantly drawn in by the narrative of this modern day fairy tale.
M.G. Leonard explains in her acknowledgments how she was inspired by the familiar stories of The Snow Queen, Pinocchio, and The Selfish Giant to create an imaginative new story which will linger in your mind as do many timeless classics. The brilliant action-driven plot does not spend unnecessary time world building without moving the story forward. I can imagine The Ice Children making a lovely magical children’s Christmas movie.
The main character, Bianca has to use her detective skills to work out why more and more children are appearing as frozen statues in the park. She links the strange happenings to a mysterious silver book her brother discovered in the library. M. G. Leonard realistically portrays how children are not listened to in times of emergency and their ideas dismissed as childish fantasies.
The only option Bianca has is to stop the mysterious disappearances on her own and discover who is responsible for turning her brother and friends to ice. She uses the clues to transport herself to a wintery wonderland, highlighting how books really are doorways to other worlds. I particularly enjoyed reading about the different spirit animals each of the children had in the magical world. I wondered what my own spirit animal would be long before I reached the end. I decided it was probably a bear.
I adored the cover and illustrations by Penny Neville-Lee and believe they would be even more magnificent in a real book format rather than viewing on my kindle. They are beautiful and add to the magical atmosphere of this book. The short chapters made this a quick and easy read. I seemed to fly through the pages, devouring every word.
It was evident about half-way through there was no real antagonist. In fact the real villain of the book is us – the human race – whose extravagance and negligence has caused the global warming which the world is suffering from creating a world ‘where winter cannot survive.’
Bianca strives to show the children they can make a difference as they are the adults of the future. They have the power to make changes to build better habits which will help the environment. In this way, M. G. Leonard has pro-actively crafted a spell-binding novel, which successfully treads the thin line between conveying an important message and preaching. The Ice Children gives children the power to do something now to prevent climate change.
This book leaves you with hope that it will indeed touch people’s hearts and change the way they think.
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This review of The Ice Children has been previously posted on NetGalley and Goodreads. I would like to thank Macmillan Children’s Books and NetGalley for organising me a digital review copy of the book. Thank you.
You can find out more about M. G. Leonard and her books on her website www.mgleonard.com and follow her on social media: Twitter @mglnrd; Instagram @mglnrd; Facebook @MGLnrd.
I have also reviewed Spark by M. G. Leonard on my blog in December 2022. To read this review take a look at: Book Review: Spark
I also had the pleasure of interviewing M. G. Leonard for the #219 Jan 2019 issue of the UK national magazine, Writers’ Forum about her research for the Beetle Boy series. You can read highlights from this Writers’ Forum interview here: An interview with… M. G. Leonard
Much To Do About Writing 