We are delighted to welcome author and poet Sarah Holding to the blog to talk about her gripping and gritty new young adult novel Road to True North.  The novel explores a formative rites of passage road trip that Ollie and his father take around Iceland.  

Olly finds himself at something of a crossroads, please can you introduce us to him?

Olly is not in a happy place at the start of the novel. He’s just failed his A levels, was arrested at a music festival, and the person he’s fallen in love with isn’t replying to his texts. Right after landing in Iceland with his father at the start of their roadtrip he also realises he’s forgotten to bring his anti-depressants. You could say his self-esteem has hit rock bottom, and he has no idea where his life back in London is going.

The geography and culture of Iceland feel really well depicted, what kind of research was involved with this?

I’ve been to Iceland a few times now, the first time was back in 2003 when I fell in love with its weird landscapes and wonderful people, ten years ago we spent a family holiday touring round in an SUV, and more recently I’ve been back there with my husband to visit friends, who also happen to be geologists and know lots about Icelandic culture. So I’ve got to know quite a bit about the country, although getting lost in the Highlands is not something I’ve experienced first-hand!

You describe Iceland as 'Europe's last true wilderness,' what was the appeal of the setting for the book?

Absolutely! I was actually writing the book while on a winter residency in a remote part of Finland, so it felt quite natural to be depicting somewhere cold and desolate, and I knew from the outset that I needed to set the story somewhere the terrain was as challenging as the emotional turmoil the characters are going through.

There's a real emotional honesty in the relationship Olly shares with his father, Sean.  It feels a counter to toxic masculinity, how conscious of this were you when writing this?

I have two sons who are now in their twenties, and watching them and their friends mature into adults has made me realise that Gen Z have much greater self-awareness and emotional intelligence and a totally different take on masculinity. Sean is an old school male chauvinist, a bit sexist, prone to mansplaining and minimising. But he slowly realises he has things to learn from his son.

You've captured a real sense of rites of passage with the journey Olly makes, both in terms of the physical journey around Iceland, but also in terms of his own personal growth.  Did any other books influence this?

I probably took some inspiration from Louis Sachar’s wonderful book Holes, where the main character finds himself in a similarly challenging landscape, wondering where his life took a wrong turn. I’ve also seen how my own children found solace in music and art during lockdown, so there’s a message about the restorative effect of creativity on your sense of self-worth that runs through the story.

Music is very important to Olly, what do you feel makes music such a powerful medium as we grow up and did you have any sense of a playlist for Olly or the book? 

Funnily enough, I not only wrote and recorded a version of the original song True North that Olly sings at the Open Mic about halfway through the book, but I have also just put together a Spotify playlist of music I imagined Olly was listening to during their long car journeys around Iceland. The song was used as the soundtrack for the trailer, and the playlist is here.

What is the most exciting or inspiring thing about writing for young adult audiences?

I think what I enjoy most is capturing an authentic-feeling voice and point of view, that enables the reader to witness private, intimate moments when a young person is navigating their way from innocence to experience. That’s how it was with writing Olly, but also with Bo, the narrator of ‘blackloop’ and equally Kam, Mel and Leon, the three genetically-engineered characters in ‘Chameleon’. I guess I’m really drawn to depicting characters who are coming of age under difficult circumstances, whether they’re enduring climate change, an electro-magnetic event, or a seismic family situation.  

Can you tell us anything about what might be next for you?

I’ve got a few other projects on the go right now, and I’m looking forward to being back in Japan this autumn to sit at my desk in Himeji and write. My next novel, which is almost finished, is set in a coastal village in Japan. It’s about two 13-year-old misfits who strike up a summer friendship and enable each other to find acceptance in their local community. It’s my take on Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book meets Studio Ghibli. I’m hoping to get it published in a dual-language edition, as I would love it to reach young Japanese readers as well as those whose first language is English.

A big thank you to Sarah Holding for the interview and to Sinead Gosai for the opportunity.

Road to True North is available to buy now, click here.

During Anti-Bullying Week 2020 (16 – 20 November), we are delighted to welcome Helen Harvey to the blog to talk about the power and pervasiveness of words.  Helen’s book Emmy Levels Up published on April 1 2021 and was the winner of the United Agents Prize.  A big welcome and thank you to Helen for discussing such an important and personal topic with us.

I’m Helen Harvey, the author of Emmy Levels Up which will be published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Emmy Levels Up is a book for 8+ readers about a gamer who beats her bullies with the skills she learns from video games.

As a writer and library worker, my life revolves around the power of words – their power to communicate and inform and enthral. The type of bullying I write about in Emmy Levels Up, verbal bullying, also rests on the power of words, how words grant power and take it away.

For me, it was really important to show verbal bullying, without any physical element, because this type of bullying is so common but so hard to understand from the outside. After all, if someone says something mean to you, you can just ignore them, right?

In my experience, no you can’t.

When I was in primary school I was bullied…

No one ever hit me or kicked me or tried to trip me up. There were no physical marks, nothing I could point to and tell a teacher about.

My bullies said my clothes were ugly. They called me names and swore at me. They asked me questions and, whatever answer I gave, they laughed. They did it relentlessly, every day, until I felt like an alien in a human suit, who didn’t belong and would never fit in.

Eventually I told my teacher. I’ve never forgotten what he said…

“Helen, every day I want you to look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself: I am clever, I am beautiful, I am me.”

I’ve never forgotten his words because they were so useless. My teacher thought he was giving me words of power, but he wasn’t, because all my power had already been stripped away. It didn’t matter whether I thought I was clever or beautiful, all that mattered was what my bullies thought. My teacher had the power to tell my bullies off, to tell them he knew what they were up to and it wasn’t OK. Just with words, he could take some the bullies’ power away and give it back to me. If only he had.

This powerlessness is what I wanted to show in Emmy Levels Up. Emmy treats her bullies’ tactics like levels in a game. She just has to figure out the trick or puzzle, and she’ll beat them. But each time she thinks she’s got it worked out – she just needs to learn their dance routine or change her clothes or use their own insults against them – she finds it doesn’t work. Until eventually she decides there’s nothing she can do. She’s completely powerless.

I wanted to give children going through verbal bullying a way to explain it to someone else: “Look, this book is me, this is why it hurts.” Books have the power to reflect our experiences, and the power to communicate other people’s experiences.

Of course, Emmy finds a way to beat her bullies in the end, and it’s gaming that helps her, after all…

For Emmy, gaming is an escape…

It’s a place where she gets lost in a story, becoming a mighty hero, destined to save the world.

But gaming isn’t just an escape, it’s also a community. Online Emmy is popular and admired for her skills. Like so many people who don’t fit in in real life, her online friends are a lifeline. Ultimately it’s her gaming community that helps Emmy beat her bullies.

The online world is also one of the few places children still get to be independent. This is especially true now that we’re all stuck inside. The online world is a place where young people can be anything they dream of: community leaders, web designers, TV stars, artists and creators, champions.

When I’m not writing, I work in a public library…

…a place which embodies the power of words. The library has always been there when I needed it. I went there to seek the company of books when I was lonely as a teenager, to print job applications when I was unemployed, and to sit somewhere warm when I lived in a freezing rented room.

Before lockdown, I still liked to write in the library on my days off. I like watching the people around me: teenagers eager to get their hands on a new book by their favourite author, couples rushing to print their boarding passes before they leave for their flight, a little girl throwing a strop because she doesn’t want to go home.

A few weeks ago, an elderly patron spent an hour walking around our newly re-opened library, choosing books. When she came to my desk to check them out, she said, “You’ll probably think I’m weird, but this is the happiest hour I’ve spent since we first went into lockdown.”

She didn’t sound weird at all.

Helen Harvey works at her local library. She completed the Bath Spa MA in Writing for Young People with distinction and won the 2017 United Agents Prize. She lives near Cambridge with her lifelong gaming partner and two furry writing companions. Emmy Levels Up is her first book.

Twitter: @HellionHarvey

Emmy Levels Up by Helen Harvey publishes in April 2021

Oxford Children’s | Paperback | 9+ | £6.99