A whisper away from magic
Amy Sparkes looks at stories that provide young readers with a portal to other worlds
What could be more exciting than discovering new worlds and realities which are only a whisper away from our own? Three authors discuss their very different world-jumping books.
The timeslip: Sophie Kirtley: The Wild Way Home
‘The Wild Way Home tells the story of two very different children: Charlie, who is from our time, and Harby, a boy from the Stone Age. It’s a story of friendship, courage and adventure as Charlie and Harby journey together through the wild green Stone Age forest in search of Harby’s missing baby sister.
‘I always knew that I wanted to write a story about a friendship between an ordinary child from now and a child from the Stone Age… so in order for this unlikely pair to meet there just had to be a timeslip of some sort. However, I didn’t want the mechanics of the timeslip to over-ride the importance of the friendship.
‘In The Wild Way Home the timeslip mechanism kind of works on two levels, neither of which I fully explain within the story even though they are both clear in my mind (more on that later!). The main trigger is simple basic human need; Charlie needs to go back to the Stone Age and Harby has a reciprocal need for Charlie to be there, but neither child realises this at the time – the realisation is more retrospective. The other level is through a physical object – a deertooth threaded onto a necklet which is lost by Harby… and then discovered by Charlie many years later.
‘For me, I found it a lot more effective to hold the timeslip mechanism kind of loosely, not to make it too concrete and defined within the text. Hence my not dwelling on explanations; I needed to make it feel kind of natural, kind of true, kind of understated I suppose. I really admire books like Tom’s Midnight Garden where the strangeness or the magic just occurs and the reader accepts it simply because the protagonist does. I’m not saying for one moment that this is the only way to write timeslip; I really enjoy a more full-on sci-fi timeslip approach too – all protons blazing – but for me I was wary of getting too bogged down in the physics.
‘As a reader I long to be transported. I think that books with a magical element can lift us from our ordinary and reveal a myriad of extraordinary possibilities. Timeslip books even offer readers the adventure of exploring the past or the future; it’s a bit like being part of history.
‘Magic in books doesn’t always have to be wrapped with a complex web of high fantasy. I have a real soft spot for books where a little twinkling of magic occurs somewhere rather ordinary. This kind of magic feels more… friendly maybe… more approachable… more achievable really… as if, maybe someday the magic could really happen to you or me. More achievable really… as if perhaps, someday, the magic could actually happen.’
Website: www.sophiekirtley.com
The contemporary: Jenny McLachlan: Return to Roar
‘Reading provides wonderful escapism and what could be more exciting for a child than discovering another world? When I was little, I always wanted to find a room in my house that I didn’t know
existed. This is what world-jumping books offer children: a door waiting to be opened.
‘The Land of Roar is a world hidden inside a folding camp bed in an attic. It belongs to twins Arthur and Rose who made the world through the amazing games they used to play in their grandad’s attic. When the book opens, the twins are about to start secondary school and Roar is fading memory, but when they rediscover the camp bed and their grandad crawls inside and disappears, they have no choice but to follow him.
‘At its heart, The Land of Roar is about the incredible power of children’s imaginations and the wonder of play. I was inspired to write it by memories of my own childhood and by seeing the sheer inventiveness of my own children at play. When my daughter was three she made a castle out of Lego and tried to get inside. This made me think: what if we could step inside our games?
‘The series originally began with the idea of three characters: a brother and sister who had grown apart, and a wonderful grandad who gave them the freedom to play. Originally the children never visited Roar and someone from their fantasy world came to them. I wrote around 10,000 words before realising that the children had to go to Roar. To be honest, inventing another world required a lot of confidence. I had to build up to it!
‘The most difficult part to write was the moment Arthur jumps to the other world. I write in the first person present tense, so it feels very immediate. There is no all-seeing narrator to smooth over that awkward moment when Arthur first discovers an entire world is hidden inside a camp bed in his grandad’s attic. Arthur has to explain exactly how it felt, and let’s be honest – it would be a pretty jaw-dropping moment.
‘Roar was invented by Arthur and Rose when they were around five years old and this allowed me to be as wildly inventive and random as five-year-olds actually are. There is a moonlight stallion called Prosecco and the villain, Crowky, is a combination of Arthur’s fear of scarecrows and crows. Both twins created their own best friends in Roar who are their alter-egos. Arthur’s is a devoted ninja-wizard and Rose’s is a sarcastic mer-witch.
‘But even a world filled with dragons, furry fairies and ninjawizards needs to be believable. For every surprising element in Roar there are ten familiar elements: sun, sand, grass, skies, forests, seas, these all feel familiar to my readers, and so do the friendships. I wanted my readers to step easily into Roar.
‘When I write, I feel as if the events I am describing are happening to me; writing Roar has been a thrilling experience. I’ve flown with dragons, jumped off waterfalls and swum with merfolk under rainbow stars. I was only able to create this world because of the hours of freedom my parents gave me to play, read and draw as a child.
Website: jennymclachlan.com
The historical: Amy Sparkes: The House At The Edge of Magic
‘I’ve always loved stories set in the real world which are sprinkled with magic. For this reason, The House on the Edge of Magic was originally set in the modern day. I wrote three chapters of this book before finally admitting the main characters (originally twins) were wrong and the story needed to go back 200 years. The House was always the House, and it was always at the Edge of Magic, so it has a kind of timeless, placeless feel to it. But for me, the framing narrative was the part which needed to be changed.
‘The House on the Edge of Magic is about tough pickpocket Nine who steals a tiny house ornament and accidentally pops it up to become a wonky, eleven-storey house. Living inside are a hopscotch-obsessed wizard, a housekeeping troll and a stab-first-ask-questions-later wooden Spoon with a penchant for gold. The House is placed under a curse, and they think that Nine is the one to break it.
‘Setting the story in the Victorian era worked really well, with its dark alleys, pickpocket culture, and gothic undertones. It beautifully complemented the mystery, the secrets and the curse. I love the idea that throughout history we’ve always been just a hairbreadth away from magic, and don’t often realise it. The magic was always there. It was there in the past. And it’s here today. Those moments when we visit old ruins and get goosebumps. Or discover secret, locked doors. Or stumble upon an odd and intriguing curio in a charity shop, which surely has its own story to tell. Maybe it just takes one chance encounter – one decision to help us discover the waiting magic.
‘And that’s exactly what happens to Nine.
‘Many world-jumping books start with the main character in the real world, then they spend the majority of the story in the fantasy world, and then they return to the real world. In
The House At The Edge of Magic, Nine straddles two worlds, providing an ongoing contrast of “the grey and the grim” reality of her impoverished Victorian life and the wildly colourful and fantastical world of the House. Going in between the two also reminds the reader how close and accessible that magic really is... if you know where to find it.’