“It’s all about the story”
Dominic Sandbrook on writing history for a young audience
The story behind my new series for children, Adventures in Time, is simple.
In the autumn of 2019 I took my son to the Imperial War Museum in London. Afterwards we made the inevitable trip to the gift shop and I promised to get him a book about the Second World War. But the right book – gripping enough to keep his attention, with a clear narrative, colourful characters and lots of memorable details – didn’t seem to exist. And right then the idea for the series flashed into my mind.
6he rst two DooMs The Second World War and The Six Wives of Henry VIII are out this summer, with six more to follow.
In a way this is quite an old-fashioned project, telling rollicking historical stories for readers aged about 8–12. But these are books for 21stcentury children who already enjoy Harry Potter and Star Wars, not dusty relics.
Although I’ve written eight history DooMs Hor aFults Adventures in Time has been the most enjoyable literary challenge of my life.
The characters – Hitler, Churchill, Henry VIII – might be familiar to us, but many children will be encountering them for the first time. The sense of narrative drama is crucial: most of my young readers won’t know that the British escape from Dunkirk, that Anne Boleyn ends up on the block or that the Germans’ plan to invade Russia goes disastrously wrong.
And all the time, one principle has dominated my thoughts. A child reader will never forgive you for being boring. So from the first page to last, I’ve tried to make the books as exciting as possible. As every young reader knows, it’s all about the story.