I am happy to host on my blog today Sue Klauber who is going to tell us a little about her children’s book Zinc, which is a family story based on the extraordinary experiences of Sue’s Hungarian Jewish father, uncle and aunt’s secret lives, each of whom played key roles during World War Two.
Zinc looks at the remarkable lengths three young people would go to protect their family and their adopted country.
It is 1939 and the Nazis are menacing Europe and planning to invade Britain. What can brothers John and George do to make a difference?
Soon John is cracking codes at Bletchley Park and George is parachuting into enemy territory.
But what of their sister Eva? What will she do in this time of unimaginable danger?
Blurb for Zinc by Sue Klauber
Sue is an experienced fundraiser and former media educator. She has produced films made by refugee children from Columbia, Kurdistan, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Armenia and Romania, worked as a fundraiser in arts and social care charities and is now the Trusts and Foundation Lead for a charity where she monitors grants across areas of residential care, community centres, physical disability and Holocaust survivors’ services.
Zinc is her first children’s book. The second book in the series is Cobalt and due for release next year, 2024.
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Hi Sue, welcome to my blog.
Tell us a little about yourself and the inspiration for your book, Zinc.
Zinc is a novel born out of my passion for finding out about my family’s recent history. It is based on the World War Two adventures of my father called John, his brother George, and their sister Eva. They died when I was young, and couldn’t tell us about what they got up to because they had signed The Official Secrets Act which barred them for telling anyone, anything, for the rest of their lives.
What I did know was that my dad was a code-breaker of the messages the Nazis sent to each other which detailed their battle plans. He was based at a centre called Bletchley Park, which is now a fascinating, family oriented, museum. George was a secret agent for Special Operations Executive (SOE) which parachuted agents into Nazi-occupied countries to sabotage their plans. Eva meanwhile was stuck in Hungary because they were a Hungarian Jewish family who had come to live in London before the war started, but she had married a Hungarian man and gone back to live there. The Hungarian government was an ally of the Nazis.
I know these things because my granny, their mum called Ilonka, had put all the family photos, letters, and official documents in a big wooden chest which I now have in my home. Since childhood I have loved to look at all the pictures and read everything in it, and that was the inspiration for writing Zinc for my son who was a young teenager when I started researching and is now in his early twenties!
From the chest and from my historical research I was able to piece together a lot of info about what they did and who they were. For example, there were many photos of uncle George playing football which showed me that he was a physically fit and active person unlike my dad, John, who liked nothing more than sitting down with a book and thinking.
Why did you decide to write a book about WW2 for children?
I started with the idea that the adventures of John, George and Eva would make a really exciting book for my son, Benjy, who was eleven. As time went on, I realised it was not just about their exploits in World War Two but also about their relationships with each other, the games they played in childhood, and what made them the people they became. Zinc is a mixture of both parts of their lives, and it appeals to both children and adults. I have given talks over the last year to year six and seven classes in schools, and also to groups of adults such as book clubs, older people’s day centres, and even to Holocaust survivors of the death camps.
Talk us through your writing process.
The first step, looking at how I wrote the sequel, is to think about what John, George, and Eva might have done next. Zinc finishes in 1941 so it is still the middle of the war. I wanted to extend their experiences into new territory without repeating what has gone before, and give greater depth to their childhood relationships. When I have the seeds of ideas, I go and research the historical topics, which takes a lot of reading time, while I look for pearls of history that will aid my story. I can then start to sketch out a plot although it is supplemented by a lot more research.
As I’m a new author, I have a full time job as a charity fundraiser so my writing practise is squeezed into weekends. It’s a funny way to work and it means that writing novels takes much longer than if I had more concentrated time, but so far it has been okay and I am crossing my fingers that, with the little time I have, I can pull off the promotion of Cobalt through giving talks and using social media, whilst considering a third book. I’m really excited about it!
Can you share a tiny bit about your plans for the sequel, Cobalt?
At the time of writing this I am making the final edits to Cobalt before it goes off for copy editing. I am discussing the cover with Martin West at Troika Books, which I can’t wait to see!
Cobalt is a sequel, as when Zinc ends John, George and Eva still need to continue to fight to overthrow fascism and protect their Jewish family in any way that they can. John is sent by the code breakers at Bletchley Park to the Sahara desert, which did indeed happen to my dad, the real John. George goes on another mission, and Eva is finding ways to resist, even though she is still trapped in Hungary. John and George recall an incident from when they were children, which they must come to terms with to repair their relationship and restore their self belief.
Did you have to do a lot of research for this series and if so what was the most unusual research?
I have found out as much as I possibly can about the siblings’ activities in World War Two by going to the National Archives in London which holds all the previously classified secret documents about World War Two for the public to see. It was such a thrill to read George’s application form for joining Special Operations Executive, in which his sloping writing details the languages he spoke, the countries he had visited, the sports he did, the school he went to and the job he did before the war started. I have also read the accounts he wrote when the war was over about the SOE operations to Hungary, Poland, and what became the Czech Republic.
There was little about John in the National Archives so I got in touch with Bletchley Park, which has been tremendously helpful. There was nothing that I could find out about Eva except for her letters and photos in granny’s wooden chest. I have visited the house that she lived in which is now in Slovakia (the borders of Hungary and Slovakia changed after the war) and that was a hugely emotional experience.
I’ve also read loads of books and I suppose the most unusual thing that I came across was that their father, Izidor, who is also in Zinc, started a football team in Budapest in 1888 called MTK which is still in their premier league! It has won it many times over the years, and is known as the Jewish team after the twelve Jewish men who started it with Izidor. I have been to a match in their stadium and was treated as a VIP! I can see where George got his love of football from.
What writing advice would you give to people aspiring to be a children’s book writer?
Write about things that are close to your heart so that you care about the book(s) so much that you will stick with it through all the inevitable ups and downs. If a publishing deal doesn’t come off, you will at least have achieved something wonderful, which you can pass onto your family as a legacy of what matters to you.
Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?
That has to be my mum, who will celebrate her 100th birthday in February 2024. She has been an invaluable sounding board for ideas and read the manuscript of Zinc and Cobalt before anyone else.
I also owe a great deal to Melissa Balfour, the editor who championed Zinc. Her thoughts and ideas were always spot-on. More recently, the author Penny Joelson has read Cobalt and given me tremendously useful feedback.
Is there anything else you would like to tell readers about your books and writing for children?
Buy Zinc and look out for Cobalt in 2024!! I don’t have a publication date yet. I love to be in touch with my readers so you can reach out to me via social media (links below).
What are your social media links where can people find out about you and your books?
Instagram is @Sueklauber and X is Sue_Klauber (make sure you put the _ because I have an old account that I cannot use of delete!) I am also on Facebook although I don’t post much.
Where is the best place for people to buy your books? My local bookshop in Muswell Hill The Children’s Bookshop London (childrensbookshoplondon.com) or please go into your local bookshops to order it if they don’t have it already, as they might decide to stock it and bring it to the attention of more children and young people that way, It is also available on Amazon and most online outlets.
Thank you Sue for an enlighting insight into the background of Zinc.
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