ANIMAL FARM
Sophie’s got the write stuff!
Living on a farm is the perfect place to be as a writer. Everything on a farm reflects basic human values. You’ve got so many animals that are completely reliant on you for their lives. If it’s pouring with rain and freezing, you’ve got to go out and recover the horse, get them some hay, move the sheep. Animals come first.
It’s the values of considering others, caring for them, respect.
Honestly, you wouldn’t think it’s true but there’s many a tear shed over an old cow you’ve had since a calf who is too old to be useful. It’s all about connection. The farm needs a lot of care, so that’s where my books come from. My first book, Allis the Little Tractor, came out of the farm and won at the New Zealand children’s book awards. It’s nice to be acknowledged and there is something nice in feeing you’re on the right track!
I’m originally from Wellington, so I’m a city girl funnily enough. My husband was from a farming background. We met at university and our farm is right on the coast in Hawke’s Bay.
We’ve been on the farm for about 15 years. We’ve even featured on Country Calendar! It’s an organic beef and sheep farm, and we also set up our own organic meat butchery company. I do all the books and accounting, and help with the yard work and getting the animals in.
It was a few years ago when I decided to become an author.
My parents are publishers and opened the Millwood Press in the 1960s. My father was a photographer and would create so many beautiful art books before he passed away a few years ago. My mum still writes!
It was in 2015 when I told Mum that I was thinking of writing some children’s books.
I think it helps that I trained in Early Childhood Teaching, and then English and drama at university. So all the creative arts and early childhood education has always been a big thing for me. I adore kids!
I love my characters and
I have definitely become very connected to them. My horses, and Heni Peni and Rosie Joy, my chickens, feature in my stories.
In her book How to Write for Children, Joy Cowley says your characters are in your head all the time and you’re always thinking about them. What would they do in this situation? What would they say? And this is so true! When the time comes to write, if you heard a knock on the door and they were there, you’d know exactly what they would say. That’s how close you get to them!
I really want to get New Zealand children’s literature out there globally! My latest book, Dear Donald Trump, has taken me around the world and is being published in eight countries at the moment.
It tells the story of two brothers in New Zealand sharing a room. But the idea for it was sparked when US President Donald Trump started talking about the wall, and someone in passing mentioned the way it was being spoken about was childlike. I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what the kids think?’
Through talking to the children in my life, I realised they are concerned with fairness and being valued. So how could
I use this topical stuff that was happening, and reflect it through a children’s book with real children’s concerns?
In my book, Sam shares a room with his brother and they don’t get on very well, so he plans to build a wall. But slowly, he realises how they can share their room more harmoniously.
A lot of people were worried about politicising a children’s book, but as soon as they read it, they realised it’s a kids’ book about sibling rivalry.
People undervalue children’s capacity to feel and understand. But they can take a lot of good, nourishing content which is very fulfilling, and that’s what I hope to share with my books.” As told to Ciara Pratt
SOPHIE SIERS (48), FROM HAWKE’S BAY, IS AN AWARD-WINNING CHILDREN’S AUTHOR AND LIVES ON AN ORGANIC FARM