Break Out, by Rosemary Hayes, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

Rosemary Hayes has been writing wonderful historical adventure novels for children for many years, but here she goes the other way through time, creating a story that lives in an imagined future history. 

 

Flora lives on a small island off the Scottish coast, ruled over by an authoritarian council with guards shadowing and spying on their behalf. She and her fellow young people have been brought up to believe that the rest of the world was wiped out by a plague, and modern communication technology wiped out with them. But Flora’s simple life, sharing a remote cottage with her parents, seeing friends and grandparents, has shockingly been interrupted. Her parents have disappeared, and in their place Flora now has a live-in guardian, Ramona, whose boyfriend is one of those guards. It seems that the council fear that Flora is going to cause them trouble, or maybe be a useful tool for them, if a rumoured uprising by rebels takes place. What can Flora do?

 

Events fast develop into a tense adventure that sees Flora discovering rebels, being captured, on the run, and then heading for days over the sea to a mainland where …. well, you’ll have to read it to find out what she discovers! 

 

This is a story that gives plenty of food for thought. Who is to be trusted? How would we behave if faced with threats to ourselves and our loved ones? What would life be like without the means to easily communicate with others? How can we judge what is and isn’t  truth?

 

A fast gallop of a story that resolves positively, making an excellent read for top of primary school, early secondary school aged children to enjoy. 

Author visits are for all students, aren't they?

Many thanks to Savita Kalhan for inviting me to guest blog on her monthly ABBA slot. Savita is an author who writes gritty fiction without any compromises - and that's a promise!!

It's so lovely having a new book out; the cover, the type face, the layout. Everything is such a delight and of course then all you want to do is take your brand new book into schools and share it with the students.

But what happens if your book is actually only aimed at a small group of students? Students who for one reason or another find reading so difficult that your book is limited to 5000 words and those words need to be carefully selected so that they retain the interest level of a teenager but the reading level of a seven year old? How many students in an average group of 200 Y8/9 students in those serried rows in front of you would be interested in such a book?

These were the questions I asked myself when my book Yasmin's Journey (Ransom Books, 2016) was published.

Ransom had asked me to write a book about a Syrian girl running away from the war, aimed at teenage girls with a reading age of around 7. What a challenge, was my immediate thought. My next thought was, Right, I'm not leaving anything out even though I only have 5000 words. I was a special needs teacher for 25 years, heading up departments. I know how these students read, the things they stumble over and their hunger for age-appropriate material. I was going to make sure I covered all bases.

I was already following the plight of the Syrian refugees very closely on television so I started to research individual accounts to ensure my story was authentic. I read about one 4 year old who became separated from his family and cried until he vomited. I was moved to tears because I kept my little grandson. Fortunately a charity reunited him with his family further down the road.

But all those images of people on the road, crossing the sea, ending up in camps and being cheated along the way, as well as meeting people who would give the shirt off their back to help- I wanted to make sure that the essence of all these stories appeared in my book. From the reaction I think I achieved it.

Yasmin’s Journey begins in a normal family apartment somewhere in Syria with the main character Yasmin on her What’s App group, The Fun Girls. She mentions that because of the war they can’t gather in each other’s homes in the evening. It’s so unsafe outside. Yasmin has a six year old brother, Ali.

The family settle down for dinner.

This is the second half of Chapter 1 :-

After dinner I make tea. Ali puts a spoon of sugar in his cup and then takes one more.
          “That’s too much,” says Dad.
          “Just tonight,” says Mum and she and Dad look at each other.
          Something’s wrong, I think.
          Then Dad says, “Yasmin, Ali, listen to me. The war’s very bad and life’s getting more and more dangerous. The flats at the park were bombed last night.”
          “That’s so near to us!” I gasp.
          Dad nods. “We can’t stay here any longer. You are leaving tomorrow with your Mum.”
          “Leaving our flat?” says Ali.
          “Leaving Syria,” says Dad, “for a new life where it’s safe.”
          “What about you?” I say.
          “I’m going ahead tonight to someone who will help us,” says Dad.
           No way! I think. “I don’t want to go,” I say. “What about school and all my friends?”
          “That’s not important now,” says Dad.
          “When will we come home?” asks Ali with a sob.
          “Never,” says Dad and Mum starts to weep too.

Yasmin’s Journey is part of an 8 book pack, Promises, published by Ransom Books last year for teenage girls with low reading ages. Sassies, Sue Purkiss, Jo Cotterill and Rosemary Hayes also have books in the same pack and I was delighted to be published with them. I assumed that my book would not attract much interest with large groups of students and at first didn’t consider reading it in schools.

But this year when I mentioned to librarians, teachers and festival directors that I have this book, they often say they have already bought it and they encourage me to include it in my programme. So I have started to talk about Yasmin’s Journey, my story about a Syrian girl who has to take care of her little brother when they flee the war in Syria. It sits rather well alongside my presentation about Hidden, my Y.A. novel about two teens who rescue an asylum seeker from the sea and hide him to save him from being deported.

I present Yasmin as a short read and then I read Chapter 1 which is just 500 words. The first time I did a reading for a Y8/9 group in an independent school, I could see the students completely absorbed. When I finished one boy called out, “Very powerful!”

After my presentation the librarian came up and said that a row of girls in the front would find the book just the right reading level and interest and she had decided to buy a set for the school.

This kind of reaction has continued throughout all my visits this year around World Book Day and beyond. But the most gratifying aspect has been those students authors rarely meet in the signing queue  – the ones who don’t buy full length YA novels because they don’t have the stamina or reading ability to cope with these texts.

In Yasmin’s Journey these students have a book they can buy with confidence and  they join their place in the queue equally alongside their fellow students, talking to me and having their book signed.

I am so pleased I took up the challenge to present Yasmin's Journey as a book alongside all the others I have written. The book was reviewed in the JC, “Halahmy enables readers to connect emotionally with the characters despite the restrictions of text... a gentle upbeat ending." It was great to see this review alongside mainstream books and I couldn’t be more proud.

Note to self –must have some Yasmin’s Journey postcards made up as a bookmark for future visits.

Miriam Halahmy
www.miriamhalahmy.com

'Writing Great Books For Children': Rosemary Hayes

Q: When is a launch not a launch?

A: When it’s a panel of children’s authors joined by a publisher and an agent

Well, here we were, three Cambridge based children’s authors - myself, Pippa Goodheart and Gillian McClure - all published by Troika books, each with a new book or books to promote and an offer from the wonderful Heffers Children’s Bookshop to host an event for us.

‘Please,’ I said, ‘don’t make it a launch,’ remembering all the times I have press ganged loyal friends to come to past launches, listen to me spout and then feel duty bound to go away clutching a copy of my new book.

My new book

Then publicity whizz, Andrea Reece, came up with the idea of a panel event.

‘Let’s call it Writing Great Books for Children.  Each of you write for a different  age group, so you can talk about the whole range from babies to teenagers.’

THAT sounded better.  Something like this could be of genuine interest to children’s writers and illustrators, particularly to those just starting out and looking for a publisher.

‘ We’ll need a publisher on the panel.’

So Martin West of Troika agreed to lead the discussion.

‘And a children’s literary agent.’

Anne Clark, literary agent based in Cambridge, was approached and came on board.

Both Andrea and Heffers really got behind this idea and publicized it widely.

There was a huge response and, despite torrential rain and traffic chaos in Cambridge, the audience flooded (literally) through the door, dripping but eager and cheerful.

Crowd at Heffers

We each spoke, first, about our backgrounds and what drew us  to writing for children.  Pippa admitted that she wasn’t much of a reader as a child but then had a Saturday job at Heffers and ended up working there, surrounded by children’s books – and was hooked.

Gillian thought she was set for a career in teaching but when she couldn’t find an alphabet book to excite her reception class, she created her own, blending  the letters with her unique and enchanting illustrations. This was spotted by a schools inspector who showed it to a publisher – and the rest is history.

Unlike Pippa, I was an avid reader as a child, often living in the imaginary world of fictional characters and I even wrote a ‘book’ when I was ten and was incensed when it was rejected by a publisher! Undaunted, I started writing again when my children were young, always drawn to a young audience with their vivid and receptive imaginations.

Next, we were asked what we found rewarding about working in the genre.

Pippa spoke about how she finds the variety and range of children’s books really stimulating, Gillian about how she loves the fact that she has control over the whole book, both text and illustrations, and I spoke about the fun of researching topics for my historical novels and, more recently, about the research I’ve been doing with local gypsies for my series ‘The Travellers’.

Then Martin and Anne gave an overview of the children’s books market. Martin, as a small, independent publisher, has the freedom to publish what he wants without the encumbrance of the acquisitions meetings, marketing approval, etc, of a large publishing house.  He also mentioned that so many large publishers are wedded to series – if it’s successful let’s have more of the same – whereas the small publisher can publish more stand alone books and popular titles which have gone OP.  The digital age, too, favours the small publisher in that he can print small quantities initially and, if necessary, reprint within a week.  With his long experience in the industry, Martin can see how it has changed, particularly with authors now being expected to play a large part in marketing their books.

The panel

Anne talked about how, in many ways, this is the golden age for children’s books, the genre being taken much more seriously by publishers.  So, while there are huge opportunities, there are also a lot more writers seeking publication.  The secret to success, she said, was to write an excellent story with a distinctive ‘voice’.

Next the three of us discussed new books for children and why we admire them.  I went for Sheena Wilkinson’s ‘Declan’ stories – ‘Taking Flight’ and ‘Grounded’. I particularly admire her characterization and ‘voice’ (see above). Sheena taught teenagers and she has a really authentic and assured touch, combined with  absolutely thrilling plots – and she doesn’t shy away from difficult issues.

Then we were asked what we felt made a great children’s book.:

First and foremost, a great story with plenty of tension, a problem to solve, a crisis and a resolution, with strong credible characters to whom a young reader can relate. Setting is important, too, either grounded in the real world of school or home or in a world of the imagination with different rules and landscapes.

Pippa talked about the importance of emotional impact (tugging at the heartstrings) and how this has to be done with subtlety. And Gillian chose an example of what she felt was the perfect picture book ‘Rosie’s Walk’, a story of only 32 words, but with tension, humour and that essential ingredient that makes a child desperate to turn over the page.

There was some discussion, then, about which current bestsellers might last – stand the test of time – and why.

And finally, we were each asked to give a couple of pieces of advice to those wanting to write for children:

· Read and read. Inside and outside your genre. See how stories work
· Write from the heart. Love your subject and your characters. Don’t try and jump on bandwagons
· Get your story read by others (preferably by a authors’ advisory service so you have an objective opinion and constructive criticism)
· Don’t rush to get your work seen. Put it away and come back to it
· Don’t agonize over the first page. Crack on and then come back to it when you have relaxed into the writing
· Don’t use current buzz words or slang as these will date
· Consider entering competitions (Chicken House, for instance) as a way of getting your work read and considered seriously

The questions from the audience were interesting and varied and the feedback was really enthusiastic, especially from those just starting out on their writing careers.

I’ve learnt so much from this.  A brilliant evening.  Thank you!

RESULT! Oh, and some books were sold, too.