At school, I was captivated by Roald Dahl’s The Witches. I remember thinking I wanted to make people feel the way I felt
Acclaimed children’s author Ross MacKenzie is not surprised that many young readers prefer page-turners to pixels.
He said: “For a while everyone in publishing was trying to get their head around digital and how to transition into that.
“I don’t think anyone really thought digital would replace books, but there was a fear. However, there’s no getting away from the fact that people love books.
“There’s nothing quite like the serendipity of finding a book on a table that you would never have stumbled on despite hours of searching online, and it becoming one of your favourites – and it doesn’t disappear into the ether when you switch it off.”
Ross, dad to Selina, 9, and Mollie, 7, is now travelling the length and breadth of the UK promoting his sixth book, Evernight, with visits to schools, libraries and book festivals. “By going out and talking about them, we’re keeping books at the forefront of children’s attention,” said Ross. Now, the
Renfrew-based author is inspiring children to discover the magic of reading, just like he did more than 30 years ago.
“It was primary five when I really got into reading,” said Ross. “I had a teacher, Miss McLean, who would read aloud to the class. We all gathered on the carpet next to her desk and she read The Witches by Roald Dahl.
“It was the first time I had been so captivated by a story that I wanted to know what happened next. When she got to the end, I remember thinking I wanted to make people feel the way that I felt. That’s when I realised that being an author was a real job. But I thought saying you wanted to be a writer was like saying you wanted to be a movie star.”
Years later, however, Ross, who trained as a graphic designer, started his first book.
“I was always writing in the background,” said the author. “One night, my now-wife Aileen and I were watching TV and I told her about this passion I had to be a writer.
She said she would buy me a laptop if I wrote a book and got it published. After a couple of years, I had a finished manuscript.
“I didn’t have an agent but sent it off to a publisher. Months went by and I was starting to lose hope – but one day we came home to a message on the answering machine saying they wanted to publish my book.
“The voice on the line was Barry Cunningham, the man who took a chance publishing Harry Potter when others turned it down.
I was so excited. It was finally happening.”
In 2010, Zac And The Dream Pirates hit the shelves. The title was a winner at the Scottish Children’s Book Award.
Ross’s second book,
The Nowhere Emporium, received the same accolade, as well as the Blue Peter Book Awards Best Story in 2016. The 38-year-old’s latest book, launched last month, is already proving a hit.
“It’s strange, because when I speak to kids at schools, I usually tell them they’re younger than my first book,” laughed Ross.
“It’s good to see another book out there. A lot of schools are now reading my book as class reads, which is amazing.
“I go to the schools and they have transformed the entire room into a scene from one of my titles.
“I became a writer for children because I love the magic of great stories and my dream is that readers will one day feel the same way about my
books.”