N M Browne was born in Burnley, Lancashire where she lived not far from the shadow of Pendle Hill.  She worked as a teacher briefly before teaching creative writing to all age groups and abilities from children in schools to BA, MA and MFA students.  N M Browne recently completed a PhD in creative writing.  To discover more about N M Browne, visit her website here.  We are delighted to welcome N M Browne to the blog to talk about her tenth novel Bad Water.

Bad Water is my tenth novel and is very much of a piece with my other stories.

My two Carnegie nominated books: Shadow Web and Basilisk are about crossing from one world to another, about injustice and revolution set in alternate or distorted versions of our own world. My historical fiction is always set in times of change when one civilisation is under threat and a new world order threatens everything: I have written about the Roman invasion of Britain, the sixth century Saxon incursions and the ninth century tribulations of Alfred of Wessex. I like a good clash of values, ideological as well as physical conflict. I am intrigued by the complexity of political power, the significance of belief. Don’t be misled though, above all else I love a good story.

Bad Water takes place after ‘The Chaos.’ Our civilisation has largely been destroyed by climate change, disease, collapsing infrastructure and civil disobedience. What is left is the Isles of Britain, small communities clinging to islands of habitable, farmable land when most of what we know is underwater. The City of London is a crumbling network of high towers swathed in greenery from vertical farms and linked by swaying rope bridges covered in vegetation. There, the murky waters of the Thames, the Great River, are rumoured to be rife with pollution and disease. The people themselves are brutal and violent locked in an endless cycle of gang warfare. This is ‘Bad Water’ and it is best avoided.

In this world almost all the technologies which link our world are gone. ipads and phones are displayed as wealth signifiers, but very little actually works: all networks are down and the world has shrunk. Few people leave the settlement of their birth. 

Ollu, my heroine, is a barger, part of a clan who make a living trading. They recycle and repair old technology, pass messages and gossip  among the largely illiterate villages and settlements of  a drowned England. Ollu’s craft, the Ark, a matriarch boat, was built before the Chaos and has a measure of ‘preeker’ ( pre chaos) technology. Ollu can read and write and the Ark has an ancient ‘aye eye’, a computer hidden beneath its boards. Like everything else it is barely functioning, and the bargers have resorted to old messaging systems: notes written on scraps of paper,  hidden in old waterproof plastic, marked with the warning colour ‘red’ to signify danger.

When Ollu’s mother become sick after giving birth to twins, Ollu negotiates with one of their trading partners: her care in return for a terrible trade.  She has to find a cache of Preeker weapons rumoured to be stashed in Bad Water.

Like all my books, this is primarily an adventure story. Until Ollu teams up with two boys, Buzz and Ratter, she is alone as few young people today are alone. She has no peers, no friends as such. As a little child she had seen films and heard recorded music, they had a radio, but all of that is now gone . She has to make her own decisions and the stakes are high. Just as for the children of today, her present is unlike her mother’s past. What happens in the future is up to her.

The first draft of this book was written long ago when neither the reality of climate change nor the potential damage of plague was quite so prominent in the national consciousness.

My rewrites improved the plot, but never altered the world: that has always been  vivid to me. When I close my eyes I can see the rotting spires of the Old Parley ( The Palace of Westminster) emerging from the Great River, a monument to a whole history lost.

Bad Water is another story about revolution and the power of young people to change their world. Ollu’s  post Chaos drowned Britain looks broken, but to her it is a place of hope and fresh potential. She forges new trading partnerships, mends broken connections, sows the seeds of civilisation.

I didn’t write this book for a pandemic, but it is curiously apt. Post-pandemic or Post-Chaos new relationships can be forged, new connections made.

All our young people have travelled alone through Bad Water, and just as with Ollu, what happens in the future is up to them.

We are delighted to welcome Nansubuga Isdahl and Nicole Miles, author and illustrator of First Names: Nelson Mandela published by David Fickling Books to the blog to talk about the book, Nelson Mandela and their work and research!

1) Please can you introduce yourselves and tell us a little about your background and interests in children’s books?

Nansubuga Isdahl, author: Thanks! I’m Nansu. In short, I was born in the US and am of Ugandan heritage. My family and I currently live in Tanzania, but I’m typing this from Florida (US), where we’ve been taking cover for the past year. I write for international NGOs and UN agencies during the day, and I work on children’s books by night. I’ve always loved books, but became particularly interested in children’s books when I had my daughter and realized that the range of voices telling stories was severely limited and the industry was skewed towards certain perspectives.

Nicole Miles, illustrator: My name is Nicole and I’m from The Bahamas. I came to the UK for university and lived here since then. I find it difficult to explain my interest in children’s books because it’s so hard to imagine why anyone wouldn’t love children’s books! Haha I actually find the category to just be really engaging and accessible and there is a sincerity in kids’ books that can often get replaced by a cooler cynicism in books for older readers and, although that’s sometimes what I’m in the mood for, that sincerity in books for younger readers is just really lovely to me.

(2) How did the commission come about?

NI: My agent brought it to me after DFB had seen a travel series manuscript of mine. I had a call with the editor and they introduced the series. Serendipitously, I had been living in South Africa for years and the opportunity to write about Nelson Mandela fit perfectly with my interests.

NM:This story is maybe not so exciting, but David Fickling Books contacted me and asked if I would be interested in working with them on the series and I was available and interested.

(3) What kind of research was involved in planning the book?

NI: On my end, I read widely. This included Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, The Long Walk to Freedom, and other texts. I also did extensive on-line research, watched many movies, listened to the freedom songs from that time period, etc. I had already visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, so felt I had a grasp of that. Also, simply by living in Johannesburg, I was afforded a considerable amount of perspective about Nelson Mandela because his legacy is reflected throughout the city.

NM: On my part, there was a lot of visual research and, because photos of Black South Africans and their living and working spaces and so on at that time are likely very rare, there was a fair bit of sleuthing involved too. For anyone mentioned in the book I obviously would have to look up as many photos of them as I could find to draw them, but if Nelson is ever driving a car, for example, and the make and model are not named, I was looking up which cars of the time were popular and accessible, whether he would have had the newest model or a car that had been in circulation for a few years, which side of the road they drive on in South Africa and which side is the steering wheel on, and so on. I looked up police uniforms versus other official authorities’ uniforms and the political parties’ flags but made sure I got the emblems from the right era, and what kinds of casual clothing Nelson would have worn at university when he wasn’t in traditional dress or a suit. Basically a lot of time was spent searching online historical photo archives!

(4) What did you learn about Nelson Mandela that you didn’t previously know?

NI: I didn’t know that he had such a tremendous sense of humour. He was very charming, it seems, and I think his sense of humour was part of that charm.

NM:Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit it but, prior to reading Nansu’s manuscript, for me it was as though Nelson Mandela’s life started in middle age when he was sent to Robben Island in 1964, then there was another big gap in my knowledge spanning 27 years, after which he simply existed as a hero because of some vague ideas about fighting apartheid here and there. I respected him before coming to this book and understood that he was an important person, but it is truly an understatement to say I learned a lot working on this project.

5. How important do you feel biographies are for children and young people, and what can we learn from them?
   
   NI: I think biographies, especially those about people who are lesser known or who live in different parts of the world, are particularly important. Historical texts, including biographies, shape how we view the past and the present. I think biographies can help expand young people’s worldview and hopefully allow them to realize that not everything we’re taught reflects the totality of an experience or event. Rather, what we're taught often reflects an interpretation or one side of a story. I think it’s very important for children to learn that distinction early and to gain those critical analysis skills. Biographies are a great way to do this. Biographies can also put a personal face to historical events, which I think makes them far more engaging for children. Learning about apartheid in history class is one thing. Learning about it from Nelson’s life, and the impact it had on him and the people around him, adds a richness that is invaluable. It also helps children to develop empathy – another critically important life skill.
    

   NM:I am not someone who is disinterested in history or global civil rights movements and yet here was a huge oversight on my part about a man who made big waves globally and was the face of a massive movement. I imagine many people, especially anyone (like me) who was too young to have been aware of the events surrounding Mandela as “current affairs” as it was all unfolding, are similarly ignorant (or even less aware) than I was about him (and others in the movement who are also mentioned in the book). That ignorance is an important thing to correct because, as the saying goes “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and a past with so much avoidable cruelty and discrimination and pain for so many people would be a horrible thing to senselessly repeat. Biographies for young people are not simply a warning though. Historical biographies can serve as a source of inspiration to children to see that, even with so much against you, it is possible to overcome and that is not just pretty words; it happens. People do great things and overcome great difficulty. I think that’s important.

    

   
   (6) It feels as though schooling was a very important point in Nelson Mandela’s life, how formative do you think being educated in a British-style school was for him and what changes did he have to make because of this?
   
   NI: I think Nelson’s formal education helped to widen his perspective about the world. It also gave him access to jobs (i.e., being a lawyer) that would have been unlikely otherwise. I think given that he was a country boy, as he put it, he certainly had to acclimate to a more formal environment during his schooling. He also learned through his formal education that what was being taught in school differed greatly from what he was learning at home (e.g., about South African history). That tension was formative in helping develop his views about equality and justice.  So, Nelson essentially gained the skill of living in two worlds--the Western one through his schooling and the South African one. His ability to “cross over” worlds, if you will, was critically important in building bridges when he came President.

    

   NM: This is a fantastic and complex question. My understanding is that, while it benefitted him and made certain opportunities available to him that may not have been otherwise, the colonial school system also took from him his culture, his history and even his name — one could fairly say much of his sense of identity… There’s a part in the book where this confusion is expressed as he compares what he is learning in formal lessons with what he is learning from elders in his village. It’s interesting because, as someone who grew up and was educated in an ex-British colony (The Bahamas), I found this particularly interesting. It speaks a lot to colonisation and whether the benefits outweigh the many damages and how those subjected to the system can use it to their advantage (and, I would hope, to help those who didn’t benefit from it as Nelson did). When talking about the ills of colonisation, there is often a knee-jerk reaction from descendants of colonisers (and the pro-establishment colonised) that the meagre benefits (roads, education, etc.) were worth it in exchange for subjugation and being second-class citizens. I personally disagree, but I don’t think it’s a topic around which anyone need feel defensive. It will always be of huge benefit to be able to conform to the established norms (whether those established norms set by colonial powers, class expectations, gender expectations, etc), but I think it’s vital that people keep hold of who they are as well because no one story is more valid than another. I guess that’s what “code-switching” is essentially.
   
   (7)  How easy was it showing the growth and maturation of Nelson through the book?
   
   NI: I was working from an outline that I had developed before I started writing and so once I charted the decisive moments at each stage of his life, this became easier.
   
   NM: I think around middle age was the trickiest and I started to sneak a little greying in his hair to show that but I didn’t want him to read as being suddenly quite a lot older, especially since elderly-Nelson was narrating the book and that might get confusing towards the end. It was very helpful having my Art Director Katie pointing to when he needed to be older or younger in certain illustrations.
   
   (8)  Did you use any photos or source materials as background for characters and indeed for the village of Qunu and the Xhosa people?
   
   NI: I’m quite sure that Nicole did as I remember sending through some images that I thought might help.
   
   NM: Definitely! As many photos as I could find haha! In some instances, it was just hard to find examples that seemed to match up to time, place and description, but I was always looking up images before I started sketching anything.
   
   (9) The book could easily feel very serious but the illustrations play a wonderful role in infusing warmth and humour, how did the collaboration work?
   
   NI: Working with Nicole (via the series editor) was lovely. I’m not sure how many rounds of the illustrations she did before they got to me, but the editor would send through roughs and final versions at various stages and I could provide my feedback or comments, based on what I understood of the context and Nelson’s life. I felt very fortunate to have been able to contribute in some small way to Nicole’s really brilliant interpretation of the book.
   
   NM: When I first started the project I was initially a little nervous that it needed to be serious, almost a little distant in tone. So, even though I probably enjoy being playful and humorous in my work more often, when I submitted my first samples they were all pretty stiff and serious. The feedback was that the team wasn’t keen on that direction and actually wanted the lighter tone that I preferred. After a conversation with Katie to talk things over and her pointing to some things in my portfolio that she felt had a closer tone to the one they were going for, I was much clearer on (and happier with) the direction and sent over a sample that employed more of the humour you see in the book now. I was very relieved that we were actually on the same page. I feel it’s much more engaging than a more classically “educational” approach would be, without being disrespectful where a more sombre tone is required.

   
   
   (10)  What is next for you both?
   
   NI: I’m currently working on (writing, drafting, brainstorming) more middle grade novels than anyone should be at one time!
   
   NM: I’ve got a few books coming out this year including Walking for Waterby Susan Hughes which is based on the true story of a little boy in Malawi who realises the world is quite different for him and his twin sister and that is coming out 1 June. Then in autumn of this year the first book in Joel Ross’ funny Alley & Rex middle grade series is coming out. I’m illustrating Viviane Elbee’s I Want My Book Back about a dinosaur-obsessed kid who wants his library book about dinosaurs back, which is out in spring 2022. Then autumn of that year sees Groundhog Gets It Wrong hitting shelves.

   
   It’s a real joy for me to be able to work on so many great book projects and I’ve got a few exciting non-publishing projects popping up this year too. My Instagram is probably the best place to keep up with what I’m up to.

A big thank you to Nansubuga and Nicole for the interview and to David Fickling Books for the opportunity.

We are excited to welcome Alison Brumwell, Chair of the Youth Libraries Group, to reflect on the work of illustrator Jon Agee, whose The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau publishes today (4 February 2021).  

One of my personal highlights of In the Frame: Putting Readers in the Picture, YLG’s virtual conference in November 2020, was the opportunity to host a live Q & A session with acclaimed U.S. author and illustrator Jon Agee from his home base in San Francisco. While I have admired Jon’s work for several years - and he has won several awards during his substantial career - he has been less well-known in the UK until recently, courtesy of independent publisher Scallywag Press.

Scallywag Press, founded in 2018 by Sarah Pakenham, has introduced five of Jon Agee’s works to UK readers, including the publication of The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau. This witty, inventive picture book was originally published in 1988 and was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Children’s Book of the Year. It features Jon’s trademark visual humour and word play, with the reader definitely privy to the joke and able to fully interact with the narrative. As Sarah says, “[Jon’s] is masterful storytelling with very simple words and pictures, full of the surreal, the hilarious and the poignant.”

I first encountered the magic and artistry of Jon Agee at Mabel’s Fables, an independent bookseller in Toronto, and was immediately hooked by his humour, sense of the absurd and impeccable visual timing. Art has always been a central part of Jon’s life; as a young student he loved drawing cartoons and comic strips and was heavily influenced by the English illustrator and poet Edward Lear. This passion is clearly evident in his books for children. He has an ability to convey emotion and cleverly pace his stories through drawing clear, bold lines. There’s also a very clever use of comic book layout (the panels, spotlight effect and speech bubbles in Lion Lessons are one example of this). 

Sarah’s own relationship with Jon’s books began when she met Charlene Lai, a Taiwanese bookseller and blogger, who had invited Jon to the Taipei BookFair. After investigating them all, Sarah says “each was more of a delight than the last!” As only two of Jon’s picture books had ever been published in the UK (coincidentally by Sarah’s editor, Janice Thompson, who was Children’s Book Editor at Faber in the 1980’s) she soon acquired the rights to Lion Lessons and made an offer on The Wall in the Middle of the Book on the basis of a half-finished book. In the latter, there is an inventive exploration of the fourth wall – the space which separates Jon’s characters from their reader – and a strong sense of the three-dimensional, which is what also makes Felix Clousseau such a timeless, remarkable picture book. The reader is in the front row of the audience, watching the narrative unfold and experiencing a thoroughly satisfying (if unexpected) ending. A twist to the tale is something at which Jon Agee excels!

Prior to interviewing Jon last year, I re-read American writer Paul Auster’s novel The Book of Illusions, in which he describes one of his character’s silent film performances: “It wasn’t slapstick and anarchy so much as character and pace, a smoothly orchestrated mixture of objects, bodies and minds.” The same could be said of Jon Agee, which is what makes him such a remarkable writer and illustrator. His illustrated narratives are entertaining, nuanced and perfectly balanced, with a visual challenge in every spread.

Thank you to Alison Brumwell for the blog.  Why not check out the YLG interview with Jon Agee here?

I have just moved further into the countryside, meriting access to a mobile library – a jolly bus filled with books. I’m looking forward to using this service: when I lived in the city, aside from toddler read-and-sing-along sessions and volunteering for my local school, my library usage had been utilitarian, in support of my part-time work in academia.

A few years ago I started writing for children. If I’m lucky, this will bring many more visits to libraries for events and book borrowing. To be a writer, after all, you have to read, read and read some more. While writing a novel for 8-12 year-olds, I read stacks of kids’ books, but I also drew heavily on academic literature and my own ethnographic research into migration and ideas of home and belonging.

Tiger Skin Rug (Cranachan Publishing) is the story of two boys who move from India to Scotland. The values and cultural references coursing through the book stem from many years’ worth of research in the form of archival digs, conversations, data gathering and time spent engaging in daily lives and customs of Hindu families in Zambia. Writing an ethnography is, by definition, ‘writing culture’ and the process demands a degree of immersion within a group, of which the ethnographer is most likely an outsider. It also demands ‘self reflexivity’: this is an awareness of the affect of one’s self as an outside researcher on the situation, and a sensitivity towards all those within that situation. An ethnographer is not objective but will seek to provide an authentic narrative. A good ethnography will therefore never be reductive, and will embrace complexity.

Tiger Skin Rug confronts the same big issues tackled in my research (migration, identity, ideas of home, the intersections of privilege and prejudice), but for a different, younger and distinctly more important, readership. I didn’t want to shy away from tricky ideas for children, but rather wanted to invite in lots of different ways of thinking about one thing – the meaning of home. My interest in home, particularly relating to migration and how children experience migration, reflects my own life experiences. It also reflects my deep concern that people in all manner of contexts continue to exclude others based on ideas and perceptions of place, authenticity and belonging – ideas and perceptions that often confuse or conflate ethnicity and nationality, race and class.

My current academic remit strongly resists attitudes that hinder cultural exchange and understanding. I am part of a global study abroad college where I sit on a working group for the college JEDI team. JEDI here stands for Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. The ‘Empire’ we are fighting is not, however, in a galaxy far, far away: we are plotting to decolonise the curriculum and revamp training to ensure fairness and representation for all. My next book is a nonfiction title coauthored with Joan Lennon. Talking History: 150 Years of Speeches (Templar Publishing, out July 2021) offers children a range of voices and political stories from around the world.

Writing for children, in turn, has influenced the way I think about my academic work. It has opened up teaching possibilities and allowed me to make new literary and theoretical connections. Supporting students’ learning and independent research projects often involves directing them to relevant books and articles. Increasingly, I find myself recommending fiction, too – which provides me with the perfect excuse to visit that mobile library.

A big thank you to Joan Haig for a fascinating blog and to Cranachan Publishing for the opportunity.

We are delighted to welcome Wibke Brueggemann to the blog on Blue Monday to talk about writing humour in young adult fiction.  Wibke grew up in northern Germany and the United States but lives in London.  She studied acting before deciding to become a writer.  Wibke’s debut novel Love is for Losers publishes on 21 January.

I believe humour is a force to be reckoned with as we write and read and live.  It can open the door to uncomfortable conversations, it can diffuse difficult situations, and it will illuminate and magnify the truth.

Humans seek laughter. It makes us feel good, physically as well as emotionally. It’s also a language we all understand, and it therefore connects us on a very honest and deeply emotional level.

When you read up on the effects of laughter on the body, you’ll find that it is proven to boost the immune system, that it can lower blood pressure, and even relieve pain from chronic illness.

The origins of the saying about laughter being the best medicine apparently go back to the Bible, to the book of Proverbs, chapter 17, verse 22 which reads "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine". It’s no wonder that we crave it, that we turn to it in times of peril.

An article on the website theconversation.com suggests that the origins of human laughter can be traces back to between ten and sixteen million years ago, and that its main purpose was to tighten social bonds which, in turn, enhanced chances of survival.

 And isn’t it interesting how millions of years later, laughter still feels so vital? I can only speak for myself, but I certainly feel its ancient pull as I go through my life and choose my friends and acquaintances.

When I wrote Love is for Losers, I never consciously planned for it to be a funny book. All I wanted was to write a story about a girl who volunteers at a charity shop, falls in love with another girl, and freaks out about it for the most bizarre reasons.

I also wanted to write about the importance of family and community, and it’s very interesting to me that humour snuck in so naturally and became the glue that held everything together.

The facilitator of this humour is my fifteen-year-old protagonist, Phoebe. She’s intelligent, she’s observant, and she’s hilarious, which enables me, the author, to very easily, openly, and honestly talk about the big subjects I want to talk about in the context of this book: sex, love, death.

When I thought: I really want to talk about the importance of young women being able to have positive and satisfying sexual experiences, all I needed to do was for Phoebe to browse the internet, and then tell her best friend Polly: “You need to talk to your boyfriend about the clitoris, because he’s clearly literally missing it.”

It’s amazing what a pinch of humour can achieve.

One of my favourite YA books of all time, and a masterclass in humour as a rhetorical device, is The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

I’ve never read anything that’s as LOL funny and gut-wrenchingly heart-breaking at the same time. Alexie’s protagonist has to deal with unimaginable issues, and the fact that he makes us laugh so very much almost feels wrong.

It’s the same with Phoebe, although the stakes aren’t quite as high for her, but underneath her bravado and hilarity, there’s a very normal and lonely and insecure human being, but we’re not uncomfortable seeing that.

I think from an audience’s point of view, it’s a lot easier to look at difficult subjects through humour than through drama, and we’re more inclined to let humour take us to those dark places. And I don’t think this is anything that applies specifically to the YA genre, although you may argue that it is applied easier here because young people live in emotional extremes that can certainly heighten highs and lows.

I’m very grateful Love is for Losers turned out to be such a funny read, and that we’re sending it into the world during what is a very difficult time for all of us.

I hope that Phoebe will bring you much needed hope, courage, and laughter.

Love Is For Losers by Wibke Brueggemann, is out on 21^st January 2021, published by Macmillan Children’s Books.  Thank you to Wibke Brueggemann for the blog article and to Macmillan Children’s Books for the opportunity.