We are delighted to welcome Patience Agbabi to the blog for an exciting interview and discussion around Poetry By Heart.  Patience was born in London in 1965 to Nigerian parents. She has been writing poetry for over twenty years, and is now writing for children too. The Infinite, the first in the Leap Cycle series, won a Wales Book of the Year Award and the series has an enthusiastic following amongst young readers. The third instalment, The Circle Breakers, is out now. Patience is also a judge on Poetry By Heart, the national poetry speaking competition for schools and colleges in England and in this interview explains why she recommends we all learn poetry by heart.

Could you describe your own first encounters with poetry – at home and at school? When did you first feel that poetry offered something special? Do you remember learning poems by heart?

My foster mum read to me every night as a young child so my earliest memory would be of hearing nursery rhymes and loving the sounds as well as the sense of them. Poetry at school came much later. It would have been early secondary and I remember loving the soundscapes again, as well as the shape it made on the page. I distinctly remember the teacher explaining iambic pentameter and understanding it instantly. I was lucky because quite a few of the pupils found it difficult – it seems to be the hardest technical device to grasp – and it actually opened up creative doors in my head. When we had to learn ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’ speech in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, I found it relatively easy because I was in tune with the iambic pentameter. I do think it’s important when learning a poem by heart that you get a choice. I was quite happy learning Shakespeare but I wasn’t your average kid.

You have always taken part in Spoken Word and live poetry performance – why is that so important to you and what do you see in audience responses?

I’m lucky to have had the gift of a very strong memory for learning poetry, even stronger when I’ve written it myself. I tend to write rhyming poetry which helps enormously with the mnemonics. My creative process involves revisiting lines over and over in order to generate subsequent lines. I hear them out loud in my head. That means by the time I get to the end of a poem, I know it. I could reproduce it on paper. Learning to deliver it fluently out loud takes a bit of rehearsal, much more as I get older! The spoken word and live poetry scene was very exciting for me. I feel privileged to have been living in London at the end of the last millennium as the scene was so vibrant, there was lots going on every week. I was initially inspired by hearing other poets perform. In the early days it was a mixture of African and Caribbean poets like Ahmed Sheikh, Merle Collins, Benjamin Zephaniah and Jean Binta Breeze. Then I also fell in love with the punk poetry of John Cooper Clarke, Joolz and Attila the Stockbroker. Then rap poets came on the scene. I could go on. I was inspired by them all and once I’d got over the crippling nerves, I loved the act of live performance, bouncing off the energy of the audience. In fact, I was less nervous performing off by heart because even though my voice was steady, my hand used to shake like crazy holding a piece of paper and I would find that distracting and worry the audience would be distracted too. Audiences always respond differently when someone is performing by heart. It seems more real; not having the pages there breaks down the barrier between poet and audience.

When did you first get involved with Poetry By Heart and why did you want to support the competition?

I was asked to judge the very first competition which was in 2013. I had to look up the date and I can’t believe it’s been around for a decade now. I instantly said yes because I think there’s something transformative about performing a poem out loud to a live audience. I liked that it asked young people to choose one poem pre-1900 and one post-1900. I’d always enjoyed poetry from previous eras but at the same time, loved contemporary poems. So I thought it would be a very good thing indeed to be involved in. I’ve judged quite a few written poetry competitions and I always find it excruciating to only be able to choose a few winners and runners up. There are always poems that don’t quite make it that are really good. But with Poetry By Heart, I know that every young person standing up on the stage is a winner. They will have gone through the process and had the chance to at least perform in front of their peers at school and if they were lucky and advanced further, a wider audience at the finals.

What do you most enjoy about being a judge for Poetry By Heart – could you describe the kind of performances you see and what the young people gain from the experience of performing at The Globe?

It is great to see young people take a poem by someone they’ve never met and make it their own. The best performances make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Since Covid, we’ve done the first stage of the judging from videos and that has worked surprisingly well. There is an intensity to the recordings, often done on mobile phones, that make you feel that person is performing directly for you. That said, it’s even better when I see the same poem on the big stage at the Globe. Then, the young people are performing in front of family and teachers and poet judges and the Poetry By Heart team; there is that communal buzz you can only get from live performance. The Globe is particularly good as a venue because it is both formal enough – designed for Shakespeare – but it’s also informal because it has that Groundling space at the front. That makes it very accessible. Mind you, it has been pretty hot the past couple of years so that front space has been a bit empty, people seeking out the shade, but I look forward to seeing a crowd a bit close to the stage this year!

Would you recommend that everyone learns poetry by heart and why?

Definitely. Because it’s fun and gives you confidence and instils a deep love of language and literature. And it also enables a reaching out to community. People generally learn poems so they can share them. They might savour them on their own tongue and lips but there is also a pure joy in lighting up someone’s life with a poem. The key thing is, it must be a poem that’s been chosen, not imposed. When someone chooses a poem, they choose it because it speaks to them. Even the process of finding such a poem is like finding a jewel, a linguistic gem that must be celebrated. I also think there’s something infectious about learning poetry by heart. When you see other people doing it, as I did, all those years ago in my early 20s, I wanted to do it too.

Book 3 in The Leap Cycle series of books for young readers is just out – what do you enjoy most about writing for young people in particular? Does your background as a poet have an impact on your writing?

There’s a point early on in Book 1, The Infinite, when my heroine states, ‘I LOVE words, the shape and the sound of them and how they feel on my tongue.’ Part of the impetus for writing for young people was wanting to celebrate the voice of my heroine, Elle. All the books are written in her voice, a first-person narrative. I created a main protagonist who loves poetry, on the page and out loud. In the sequel, The Time-Thief, Elle has won a poetry competition and eventually reads her poem out loud at, wait for it, a poetry salon at Dr Johnson’s house in the year 1752. It’s a time-travel series so I was able to create that scene. In the latest book, The Circle Breakers, anonymous notes are written in rhyming couplets and there is a spoken word Battle of the Beats in one of the earlier chapters. I’m currently working on the finale, Book 4, which includes scenes in a library called The Four Quartets. My poetry background totally fed the entire series. I could not have written it if I didn’t have a deep passion for poetry, both on the page but also out loud. Young people love hearing books read aloud. I’ve had a lot of feedback from teachers who have enjoyed reading The Leap Cycle books to their Year 5 and 6 classes. It feels like things have come full circle; my love of words came from hearing them being read aloud by my mum. Now I’m writing books for young people. Hopefully I’m inspiring some writers of the future.

The Circle Breakers is out now, published by Canongate, 9781838855796, £7.99, pbk and Poetry By Heart is open to all schools, primary and secondary, and colleges. To find out more visit the website or contact the team direct on info@poetrybyheart.org.uk or on 0117 905 5338.

Thank you to Patience for the interview and to Andrea Reece for the opportunity.

If you are interested in finding out about some of the hottest new books for children and young people publishing in 2023, connecting with 22 publishers, meeting an amazing array of authors ( including S.F. Said, Phil Earle, Carnegie Medal for Writing winner 2022 Katya Balen, Jenny Pearson and more!), signing up for free promotional materials or taking part in competitions and much more, the Children's Reading Partners Roadshow - run by The Reading Agency - is for you.  Details about how to sign up for you free place and what to expect in each session are below.

When: Wednesday 9 November from 9.15am - 3.15pm

Where: Zoom Webinar (link provided after registration). You need to register for each of the sessions you would like to attend as they have different log ins.

Session 1: 9.15 - 10.20am. The publishers presenting in this session are: Gecko Press, Usborne, Chicken House, Hachette Children's Group and Macmillan Children's Books. Register for session 1 here.

Session 2: 10.45 - 12.00pm. The publishers presenting in this session are: Andersen Press, Bloomsbury, Buster Books, Little Tiger, Rebellion Publishing and Welbeck Children's Books. Register for session 2 here.

Session 3: 12.45 - 1.55pm. The publishers presenting in this session are: Bonnier Books UK, b small Publishing, Faber & Faber, HarperCollins Children's Books, New Frontier Publishing and UCLan Publishing. Register for session 3 here.

Session 4: 2.15 - 3.15pm. The publishers presenting in this session are: David Fickling Books, Farshore, Nosy Crow and Simon & Schuster Children's Books.

Register for session 4 here.

The Reading Agency also run our Chatterbooks newsletter which regularly runs read and review campaigns for Children’s reading groups and offers free physical and digital resources and displays to school and public libraries as well as author visits. If you would like to hear more about our opportunities for librarians and teachers, you can sign up to our newsletter here.

We are delighted to welcome Joseph Namara Hollis to the blog.  Joseph has been named winner of the 2022 Klaus Flugge Prize which is awarded to the most promising and exciting newcomer to picture book illustration. A graduate of the Cambridge School of Art at Anglia Ruskin University, he won with his book Pierre’s New Hair, published by Tate Publishing, which tells the story of a bear obsessed with looking good but also desperate to show the world his roller-skating flair. Judge illustrator Emily Gravett said, ‘Pierre’s New Hair made me laugh out loud. What impressed me was the way that Joseph was able to conjure up a whole world for his characters to inhabit. It was our winner because we loved how every aspect of the book fitted together perfectly to make this a quirky fun book to read.’

Can you tell us about your route into illustration?

I’ve always drawn, including when I wasn’t meant to. A serial doodler. But it probably took until the end of a degree in Graphic Arts and Design at Leeds Met to realise I wanted to illustrate, or be an illustrator. Although I had been drawn towards it since studying arts foundation, I wasn’t truly aware what ‘illustration’ meant or that it was something I could do. It took several more years of experimentation to commit to the practice. Or understand what the practice might involve.

This was a lonely practice. Drawing in my makeshift studio between shifts as a support-worker, it sometimes felt like I was going against the grain.  Stark contrast to the atmosphere at Cambridge School of Art, when I began studying an MA in Children’s Book Illustration. That was a tremendously exciting time, surrounded by people with the same hopes and dreams, I knew I was in the right place. The end of the course marked the beginning of the journey to publication. The course’s final exhibition in London, trips to Bologna Children’s Book Fair (organised by Pam Smy and her team of volunteers), and illustration competitions (V&A Illustration Awards & the Macmillan Prize) gave me the opportunity to connect with publishers for the first time. But it would take several more years wrestling with my stories before I could find a way into the industry. During this leg of the journey, I had a partner (now my wife) who shared the same goals as me, so in a sense we were able to keep the team spirit (from Cambridge) alive.

On returning to England, we entered a Picture Hooks speed dating event and it was there, in Edinburgh that we first met (what would become) our illustration agency – Plum Pudding. I prepared work for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair for the third year, but this time with guidance from my agent, Hannah. I was delighted when she struck a deal with Tate Publishing. Hannah had helped me regain confidence writing, and editors Fay, and Emilia at Tate Publishing furthered this. It had been difficult developing the story beforehand (when things didn’t work out it often felt like a failure), but the process with Tate was most enjoyable. The perfect balance between freedom and support.

Are there any illustrators whose work and style have been particularly important or influential to you?

More illustrators than you can shake a stick at! I always mention Richard Scarry, whose work I adored as a child. On reflection his work has been a big influence. A favourite contemporary would be Bjorn Rune Lie, although the style is somewhat different there are parallels between the two. I’m attracted to the inventive characters, and the big worlds they build with intricate details. Wonderful! And witty. I can admire these for hours. And I intend to! – I’ve just ordered a Bjorn Rune Lie screen print!

Congratulations on winning the Klaus Flugge with 'Pierre's New Hair' it's a wonderfully energetic and fun book, can you tell us a little about how you created it?

It is difficult to keep track. I was working on it over the span of several years before working with Tate Publishing (and since having a baby my memory has eroded at an alarming rate).

The key ingredients, or tools would be my little red notebook. This is for the daily writing ritual. Anything goes! Write anything. And it is where the seeds of the idea were planted.

Then I threw myself directly into a tiny dummy book. The small size gave it a ‘throw-away’ nature, which helped relieve the potentially stifling pressure to make anything ‘important’. Playing with the page-turn helped coax the idea along into a sequence, forcing it to unfold page after page helped make it more like a ‘story’. That initial ‘idea bit’ happened fast and was exciting. I must be onto something here!

After that a much more drawn-out process began, wrestling with countless dummy books, experimenting with artwork, writing manuscripts, drawing flat plans, filling sketchbooks with drawings that explored how characters behave or thumbnailing how the sequence could evolve (in terms of page design and such). The story took many forms while this went on. It was often enjoyable, but certainly had its challenging phases (of doubt) too.

What does it mean to you winning the award and knowing that such a prestigious panel of judges selected 'Pierre's New Hair'?

I have great admiration for the judges, their decision fills me with gratitude. For me, it is permission. Permission to keep doing what sometimes feels nonsensical, uncertain, and impractical, whilst at the same time an absolute necessity.  I feel like I can enter the arena with them fighting my corner. It’ll give me momentum. Fearlessness. Which is extremely useful when wrestling with the creative forces!

The illustration and text combine to tell a wonderfully funny story.  Traditionally humour is often under-represented in prizes, how important are funny books?

We all need something to help lift our spirits. Something safe to retreat to and give us warmth. You won’t get that from the news, or social media. I love hibernating with books like The Wind in the Willows, The Day No One Was Angry and Skunk and Badger. Is it the anthropomorphism that makes these funny? I find it endearing, and those books certainly make me laugh.


The humour in Pierre’s New Hair is almost unintentional, it is more so a biproduct of trying to invest deeply in Pierre’s character. I don’t think there are jokes as such, instead personality injected bit by bit. Drawing after drawing. Curiosities emerge. Genuine interests seep in.  And this all ends up appearing funny, juxtaposed in an animal world. I’ve never really thought about it, but I’m sure if I tried more proactively to be funny, it would be a terrible experience. And involve more tears than laughter.

Do you have plans for what you will be working on next?

Quantum Physics (to clarify, I’m referring to illustrations for a quantum physics institute, I’m not intending to conduct any scientific experiments myself, no plans for a career change… yet) and a story about a miserable hedgehog.

I’m also keen to embark on entirely new ideas. Recently, I’ve been focusing a great deal of energy on raising my first child and teaching at university. But with the little one starting nursery and reducing my hours as a lecturer I’ll have more time to invest in my practice again. Play time! 

What would a dream commission be for you?

Every commission is a dream commission! Each project consumes so much energy, I wouldn’t take on anything that didn’t feel like a dream commission. There are far more efficient ways to pay the bills.

I’m excited about all elements of illustration and would like to stretch myself outside the area of children’s book illustration (although I’m not sure there are enough hours in the day). I wonder what happens when there are a different set of rules. It might be exciting to explore some ideas that are less child friendly.

However, perhaps more urgently, I want to keep exploring my own ideas as a children’s picture book maker and see how far I can push those boundaries. There’s so much to learn.

The winner of the Klaus Flugge traditionally goes on to judge the award the year after they have won.  Is there anything you'd particularly like to see among the contenders when you are a judge?

A great picture book will lead you on an unexpected journey, an element of surprise can be captivating. With that in mind, I’ll try to avoid going in search of something specific and let the books lead the way.

When an artist is lost in the moment wonderfully authentic things happen. It’s thrilling to see someone embrace spontaneity and take risks with their work. It’s great to see moments of unfiltered passion. Moments might be the keyword because those moments need to be cradled carefully to communicate eloquently. Light and shade (or yin and yang) add depth to a story. It’s wonderful when a picture book attains that ‘perfect’ balance.

A huge thank you to Joseph Namara Hollis for the fantastic interview and to Andrea Reece and the Klaus Flugge Prize for the opportunity!

Gallery images: 

One - Showing the cover rough and final cover image for 'Pierre's New Hair'

Two - An early rough

Three - Cover image for 'Not in the Mood'

Four - spreads from 'Pierre's New Hair'

Five - photograph of Klaus Flugge Prize winner Joseph Namara Hollis holding award

Six - Klaus Flugge with 2022 winner Joseph Namara Hollis and judges 

Maisie Chan is the winner of the 2022 Branford Boase award with her brilliantly funny and thoughtful Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths.  We were delighted to talk with Maisie about her writing and about the award.

What was your journey to becoming an author?

It’s been a long journey!

I guess I had an epiphany when my mum passed away in 2003. I remember telling someone I wanted to ‘write books!’ but I had no idea where to begin. Three years later, I began with short stories and flash fiction for adults. I felt that was a good place to begin as the form is short and I could then move onto novels. I have to say that I was immensely scared of writing a novel and didn’t try to write one for years. I felt it was too big a hurdle and that I was not ready for the task. I also wanted to write a memoir, however, I remember someone telling me that I was ‘too young’ to write a memoir. At the time, I didn’t agree, I felt I had a lot to say about my life. Yet, they were right in terms of my writing ability. I was still very much learning to become a writer. I had support from Writing West Midlands.

I had some short stories published and lead creative writing workshops for adults and children, but I still didn’t write a novel until I became a mentee on the inaugural Megaphone scheme with mentor Leila Rasheed back in 2016. I’d had some time away to have children and had hardly written a thing for five years but felt that this was a great opportunity for me to get back to what mattered to me, which was writing. I had wanted to try writing for children after a librarian had told me my ‘voice’ suited children’s and Y.A. I thought I would give it a go. The year I spent as a Megaphone mentee was brilliant. We had masterclasses from Patrice Lawrence (just before Orange Boy was published!), Catherine Johnson, Candy Gourlay, Alex Wheatle and more. We got to speak to editors and agents, and we had a showcase at the London Book Fair. I wrote a novel for teens called Looking For Lily Wong and landed my first agent soon after I finished writing it.

During the time I was editing my teen novel, I felt something just wasn’t working and put it aside. My agent asked me if I had any middle grade ideas and I pitched her Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (which was then called Lychees and Bingo Balls). She liked the idea, and I wrote it. A year later we went on submission, and it was picked up by Piccadilly Press in a two-book deal and it was bought by Amulet in the States a few weeks later. I thought Danny Chung might do better in the States than in the U.K. because there hadn’t been many (or any) titles published here for that age group by or for British Chinese people. I wasn’t sure there was going to be a readership. But I’m glad to say I was wrong!

Can you introduce us to Danny Chung please?

Danny is eleven-years-old and is a young artist. He loves drawing comics and getting his friend Ravi to help with the speech bubbles. It’s an activity that makes them laugh and one where they can be truly themselves. He also uses drawing to vent his frustrations and to work out things going on in his life.

Danny lives above a Chinese takeaway with his parents. They want him to do well at school, and in their eyes that means being good at maths and other subjects. His mum’s best friend, Auntie Yee is always comparing him to Amelia Yee who is good at everything. This makes Danny feel bad.

Danny also wants to be part of a ‘cool’ group of boys who play physical games (scooting and shooting their foam pellet guns around the park) rather than the more imaginative activities that he and Ravi partake in. And to make things worse, he’s got a math presentation and his gran from China moves in. No-one has told him this is going to happen, so it’s the worse surprise he can think of getting. Danny has a lot of personal challenges to overcome in the book.

He's a regular boy on one hand. But he’s also a British Chinese boy too and so there are things about his family’s situation and lifestyle which are uniquely British Chinese. My main concern when writing him was making him relatable. He’s got wants and desires like any eleven-year-old boy whose parents hope they’ll to be a certain way, but he has his own path to follow.

The relationship between Danny and his grandmother, Nai Nai, is beautifully realised and is often very funny, was it challenging creating the dynamic between the pair when language is a barrier for them?

Well, yes and no. My concern for Nai Nai was that I wanted her to inhabit the space in the book without speaking much and so she is very physical in how she moves, and her actions speak volumes. I wanted readers to ‘see’ her in their minds clearly when they read the book and she is by far the most beloved character. I have a lot of experience in real life of staying with people or communicating with others who don’t speak the same language as me. I lived in Taipei for a while and I was the one who was the outsider, who couldn’t speak the language and would smile and point at things. You find that you can use your body, your expressions and your hands for communication when language is a barrier, so I put all of that into the novel. There may be the occasional blip too and you can see that in the scene were Danny takes Nai Nai to the bowling green and there is an incident with a large fruit. It made me laugh to write those kinds of scenes and I think people have enjoyed the humour of the book, but it was hard not to make Nai Nai into a caricature. She is based on a few older women that I know, grandmothers and mothers who do spit out lychee seeds into buckets, or who bash watermelons with their palms. Women who want to show their love by feeding you and feeding you some more.

The book is written in first person, so we see things form Danny’s point of view and I think he was meaner to her in the earlier drafts.  My editor helped me to bring out Danny’s feelings about his grandmother more, but to have him less stroppy. She said he also needed to be likeable! I think the tricky part was making him dislike her for taking up space in his life, rather than disliking her for being ‘foreign’ – I didn’t want readers to see her to ‘other’ even though she is newly-arrived, so that was a challenge and I hope it worked. In the scene with the chicken feet this came to the forefront – I didn’t want Danny to be embarrassed by the food, he loves the food she brought to school. He wanted to eat it. He’s embarrassed that she’s shown up to school. Little things like that were important for me. I’ve seen books where Chinese food is posited as ‘disgusting’. It’s about showing the relationship between them as a bridge between generations and cultures. I had a lot of worries about representation when writing it. I wanted to centre a British Chinese character, he’s from the diaspora and so it’s almost a third space. Non-Chinese people might see him as an outsider even though he’s British, Chinese from Asia don’t see him as fully Chinese because he can’t speak the language. It’s a precarious place to be.

Danny finds self-expression through his art, did you have any means for release when you were growing up?

I used to like drawing when I was a child. I won a couple of art competitions when I was in reception class. My painting of Little Red Riding Hood was put up in my local library (the now closed Selly Oak Library in South Birmingham) and I used to like music. I was a fan of Shakin’ Stevens and Adam and the Ants and put masking tape on my face to replicate the Adam Ant stripes that he used to have on his face. I liked to read and to go to the library. I had a few of those Ladybird fairytale books at home but we weren’t a family who read. My parents would read the local newspaper and my dad would buy the Angling Times, as she was a fisherman, but that was it. I liked to make up games and play out on the streets and in the local park, which was called Graffiti Park by the kids, you can guess why!

There's a lot of thoughtful comment around the fusion of different cultures and traditions but there is also a lot of humour, were you conscious of creating a balance between the two and is humour a useful means for exploring complex ideas?

I think the humour comes from my family background. I think humour can be used to break down barriers between people. It can also create divides if you are using it to bully or make fun of someone. How can I centre this person’s experience and add nuance to their character? I think was one question I looked at when writing the characters. For example, Auntie Yee is a tiger mom. She is like a lot of parents I’ve met (Chinese and also non-Chinese) who are pushy, they’re competitive and think about their child as the sum of their academic achievements. I presented that stereotype (because there are people like that I know), but I also added a layer of empathy where we can see that Auntie Yee, also strives to belong in a culture that does not accept her fully so then she thinks that by having certain things or having a daughter who is the best is the way to make friends of be accepted.

The Branford Boase recognises both a debut author and also their editor, can you tell us a little about the relationship you had with your editor Georgia Murray at Piccadilly Press?

Georgia loved my writing from the beginning. When we met for the first time, I was sure this was the right editor for my book. I could tell she loved the characters and she said it was in ‘good shape’ which made me feel like I wasn’t a total novice.

Georgia sends me notes about the big things like structure, characters, plot and then there are notes on the actual manuscript. I must say that each time I’ve had editor notes from Georgia, they have been kind (which is very important for first time writers), the tone is not condescending, or demanding either. She offers gentle suggestions and so far, there hasn’t been a note which I’ve disagreed on or had to dispute. I think there is a now an inherent trust between us. She knows how I work, which can be disorganised, as I have a rough plan when I start writing but I like to see what will appear as I’m writing. I have to delete a lot of words sometimes as I try things and they may not always work but I accept that as part of the process of writing.

It was interesting for me to have Georgia there from the idea stage with my second novel - Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu and I would say her input into the shaping of Lizzie Chu was a lot more than with Danny Chung as I had her support all the way through. She was particularly helpful when I was stuck. I think sometimes I want someone else to come up with the answers for me, but Georgia is good at encouraging me to stick with the process. Parts of the novel appear in the writing of it and some of it feels unconscious and magical almost, I don’t know where some of it comes from.

I value Georgia’s measured nature and if I have any concerns (I am a worrier!) then I feel I can always go to her and tell her what’s on my mind. I trust Georgia (and her team) to know about the market and so when they came up with Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths as the title of the book, I wasn’t sure, but then I told myself, I have to trust her and the team to know what is best for the book.

Your latest book is 'Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu,' can you tell us anything about it please?

Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu is about a young carer whose grandad, Wai Gong is acting a little strange. They’re huge Strictly Come Dancing fans and Lizzie gets tickets to the Blackpool Tower (the home of Ballroom and Latin dancing) and she wants to take him there for a special day out but she’s twelve-years-old and needs help. It’s got a road trip, cosplay and of course, dancing. But there are also intermissions of Chinese myths and legends about the goddess Guan Yin who features in the book. She is the goddess of compassion and mercy. The book is influenced and was written during the pandemic. It was hard going! It’s really a homage to popular culture which was our escape during a tough time, and also, it’s a book about joy and kindness. It’s quite different from Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, the themes are a little bit older, as is the voice. The writing was also different as the story isn’t as layered as Danny Chung either and there isn’t an antagonist as such, the obstacles are linear. But it is emotive, so I’ve been told and there is humour in there too and a lively cast of characters. I hope readers like it!

The winner of the Branford Boase traditionally goes on to judge the award, is there anything you will be particularly keen to see next year?

Ohhhh, what an interesting question! I don’t know! I loved seeing a highly illustrated book on this year’s shortlist. I think graphic novels are highly sophisticated and so perhaps I’d like to see one of those do well – a YA graphic novel maybe? They’re becoming increasingly popular for all age ranges. Also, funny books are hard to write but often don’t get the kudos that they should in children’s literature. If you can make a children smile, laugh or giggle that is no mean feat and I think children need joy now as they’ve been through so much. So maybe a funny book where you learn something new too? Who knows what we are going to get next year!

A big thank you to Maisie for the interview and to Andrea Reece for the opportunity.

The Youth Library Group are delighted to be part of Teri Terry’s Black Night Falling blog tour.  This high energy, high action title marks the conclusion to circle trilogy, begun with Dark Blue Rising and continued with Red Sky Burning.  In Black Night Falling, Tabby has been captured by the Circle and is finding out more about the ancient sisterhood and Hayden become a figurehead for activists that are determined to see through change at almost any cost.  The questions below are intended to open up discussion around the third book in the trilogy.

How important do you think it is that people act to save and protect the environment?

What dangers does Black Night Falling suggest might exist if this doesn’t happen?

Does the book suggest any barriers that might make it difficult to act?  If you were involved, how might you overcome these barriers?

‘Now they face the anguish of impossible choices with the climate crisis.’  (p283)
Choice is very important in the novel can you think of difficult choices that exist for characters in the book?  Is it always clear whether there is a right or a wrong choice?

Do you think technological and scientific advances are always a good thing?
When thinking about your answer it might be useful to consider
          - the way The Circle use DNA
          - the use of chemicals to try to combat climate change

‘How can you even begin to justify the things The Circle have done?’ (p29)
Do you think the actions and decisions The Circle have made can be justified?  Sometimes people use the phrase the ends justify the means.  Do you think this could apply to The Circle?

Hayden wonders ‘Would telling her have been worth the risk of losing her friendship?’ (p47)
Do you think Hayden should have told Eva how he felt about her?  What are the reasons for your answer?

What benefits do you think there are to being part dolphin?  If you could chose an animal whose features you could have which would it be and why?  Would this help you achieve a particular goal?

‘If all of these environmental groups want to stop climate change, stop pollution, stop the sixth mass extinction what is there to argue about?’ (p73)
Why do you think the groups do argue and what benefits might there be if they could come together more?

If you had the opportunity would you ever be tempted to become part of a group like The Circle? 
When thinking about your answer it might be useful to consider:
          - What it feels like to be part of or outside a group?
          - The work and the knowledge that The Circle has.
  - Whether being part of a group can affect the feelings and decisions we make individually?

If you have enjoyed reading The Circle trilogy, you might like to read another trilogy by Teri Terry, you could try The Dark Matter Trilogy which is all about an epidemic and its aftermath, or The Slated trilogy, a dystopia where those accused of crimes have their memories wiped to give a clean start…