RADAR: Interview with Helen Dunmore

Welcome to Day 3 of my series of RADAR posts on the Ingo series. Today I have the great honor of interviewing Helen Dunmore--renowned novelist, poet, and children's writer--about the Ingo series. So, please, extend a warm welcome and promise you'll read the Ingo books.

KH: I think the Ingo series is one of the most innovative series I've read for young readers in recent years. When I read Amanda Craig's rave review in the Times, I knew I had to order the book from the U.K. Can you tell us what drew you to the oceans as a setting for the Ingo series?

Helen Dunmore: A love of the sea; knowledge of the Cornish coast; the excitement of the unknown.

KH: When Ingo was first published, marketing information mentioned that the Ingo series was to be a trilogy. Upon reading the third volume of the series, The Deep, it's clear that there is at least one more volume in store. How many volumes will comprise the Ingo series and what do we have to look forward to in number 4?

Helen Dunmore: You are right, there is a final book to come. Originally I thought that the INGO books would be a trilogy, but as I worked in THE DEEP it became clear that there would have to be a fourth book. The story needed to work itself out fully; the characters still had so much to experience. The more I wrote about Ingo, the more there was to discover. The final book, THE CROSSING OF INGO, will be published in May 2008 (UK date).

KH: Your hero, Sapphire, is strongly torn between the earth and the seas. She can swim with the Mer, converse with whales and other sea creatures, and live for days under the water. Can she also converse with creatures of the earth?

Helen Dunmore: Not in the same way. She understands her dog Sadie intuitively, but she cannot talk to Sadie in the same way as she can talk to the whale. Conor is different: for example, he can talk to the bees.

KH: Sapphire's brother Conor is more strongly connected to the earth than is Sapphire. Nonetheless, he can also swim with the Mer and is drawn quite strongly to a Mer girl, Elvira. I'm a little worried about Conor's attraction to Elvira--she seems dangerous. Should we be concerned, or are we seeing the world through Sapphire's eyes?

Helen Dunmore: Sapphire is very troubled by her brother's attraction to Elvira, as you say. Perhaps she feels that her brother is bewitched by Elvira...perhaps she is also a little jealous, because she and Conor are so close. However Conor, like his sister, has free will and must make his own choices.

KH: There is a genetic component to Sapphire, Conor, and their father's abilities to live in Ingo (the world of the Mer under the seas). Is this an extremely rare ability in your design, or are there other families like Sapphire's living amongst us?

Helen Dunmore: There are others--Gloria Fortune is one example of a person who has Mer blood without being fully aware of it. Some become aware, others never do.

KH: There is a strong environmental message to the Ingo series, one that emphasizes the connection between the land and the sea. When you began writing Ingo did you have environmental concerns in mind or did they just develop organically?

Helen Dunmore: I would say that these themes developed naturally. In part I am sure it comes from living on an island where nowhere is far from the sea. The sea's immense power can blind us to the fragility of a coral reef or a sustainable seal population. Humans do have a tendency to see the rest of the world in terms of resources, either tapped or untapped. But I don't think fiction is there to preach--it is there to bring worlds alive.

KH: Sapphire (or Sapphy) is one of the most realistic preteen heroes I've encountered in a long time. She's not overly precocious, is not always self-aware, and often acts on impulse. At the same time, she's brave, cares deeply for her brother, family, people of earth, and the Mer. Does Sapphy have a model, or is she entirely imagined?

Helen Dunmore: Sapphy is imagined, although I have drawn on certain characteristics which I've known in real people. It has been fascinating to get to know all the characters in depth, over a number of books, and also over a period of time. It is very important to me that Sapphire, Conor, Elvira, Faro and many other characters are growing up fast and changing all the time. Characters sometimes surprise the author, I find.

KH: Most children in the U.K. have a concrete idea about what Cornwall looks like. How would you tell children in the U.S. to imagine a place like Cornwall?

Helen Dunmore: You need to imagine a long, narrow peninsula of land jutting out into the deep Atlantic. About 250,000 people live in Cornwall. It is a Celtic country, with a Celtic language (Cornish). Although Cornish is not widely spoken now, place-names are Cornish. The coastline is wild and rocky, the sea is often stormy and unpredictable, especially in the part of Cornwall where the books are set. There are high cliffs, rocky coves, and wide sandy beaches for surfing. There are seals, dolphins, basking sharks and countless sea-birds. It is a coast where shipwrecks are common, and many lives are owed to the life-boat service. The sea around Cornwall is extraordinarily beautiful, dark green, blue and turquoise, but it demands respect. On land, the fields are small and in West Penwith are defined by granite hedges which have often been in place since the Bronze Age. Standing stones are evidence of pre-Christian worship, and there are many ruins of tin mines. Tin mining, fishing and farming were the main industries in Cornwall for thousands of years, but these days tourism dominates. Cornwall is busy in summer; but if you are prepared to walk and climb you can still find quiet coves like the ones in the Ingo books, where there might be a seal or two.

KH: As you write in so many genres for so many different audiences, how do you decide what to write when?

Helen Dunmore: I suspect that the poems or the story decide.

KH: What will the next volume in the Ingo series be called and when (oh, when!) will it be released?

Helen Dunmore: THE CROSSING OF INGO, May 2008.
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Recommendations from Under the Radar: Day 4

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: Friends for Life and Life Without Friends both by Ellen Emerson White

Shaken & Stirred: The Changeover and Catalogue of the Universe, both by Margaret Mahy

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Treasures of Weatherby by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Bildungsroman: Swollen by Melissa Lion

Finding Wonderland: Lucy the Giant by Sherry L. Smith

Miss Erin: A discussion of Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye and an interview with author Kaza Kingsley

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker

Fuse Number 8: The Noisy Counting Book by Susan Schade

Chasing Ray: Juniper, Genetian and Rosemary by Pamela Dean

lectitans: Who Pppplugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf

Writing and Ruminating: Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown

Semicolon: Christian fiction

MotherReader: It's Kind of a Funny Story

A big welcome to Barbara Kerley

I'm very happy to welcome Barbara Kerley to Big A little a.

Barbara is the author of many a picture book (see Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast for the full rundown), including The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Dawkins. (Barbara is dinosaur hunting here in her photo.)

Her first novel, Greetings from Planet Earth, has just been published by Scholastic. (Read the review here.) I loved Greetings from Planet Earth so much, I just had to ask Barbara Kerley a few questions. And here they are:

Barbara...you're a well-known Picture Book author. Why did you decide to turn to Middle Grade fiction? Was it always your plan, or did the idea of Greetings from Planet Earth just hit you?

Actually, I've been writing middle grade fiction for years; it's just never been published before. (I also have plenty of nonfiction that hasn't been published, either!) But I do think that the themes explored in Greetings are particularly well suited for fiction because part of the point of the book is that life poses a lot of questions and people have to find the answers that work for them. And I think that fiction poses lots of questions, too.

Beer, wine, or a soft drink?

A nice, pale ale.

If you had the chance, would you travel to the moon?

Well, this is going to sound dorky, but it is totally honest—only if I could figure out a way to avoid the motion sickness (or whatever version of it some astronauts get). As a kid I got carsick all the time. I remember once my sister being disgusted with me for getting carsick on (literally) a ten-minute drive, and my mom can still cruise around northern Virginia and point out all the spots where she had to pull over to the side of the road. As an adult, I am miserable on things like roller coasters and all those darn spinning contraptions at small-town amusement fairs (which may be just as well, as a lot of them appear to be held together with duct tape). I read somewhere that they call the zero-gravity machine astronauts train in "The Vomit Comet" and suspect I'd have to take so much Dramamine that I'd sleep through all my NASA assignments.

Beach, city, or forest?

Forest, preferably alpine, and wearing cross-country skis.

Why did you decide to write children's books and not, say, mystery, chick lit, or "literary fiction"?

When I first started seriously writing, I wrote short stories for adults. Then I had a daughter and started reading copiously to her, and realized that kids' books were a much better match for my sensibilities. I get sort of jumpy-excited about all sorts of stuff in a way that doesn't seem to fit adult books. I seem to say, "Oh, cool!" a lot. Writing for kids just feels like 'home' in a way that writing for adults never did.

Coffee, tea, or a triple skinny latte?

Irish Breakfast tea, brewed strong, with more milk in it than you can imagine any grownup wanting.

Greetings from Planet Earth is your first novel. How long did it take you to write? And I mean from the very beginning--from the spark in your eye to the lovely product I just read?

Start to finish, about 4 1/2 years, though there were some gaps in there when I worked on picture books.

Movie, Theater, or a Concert?

Movie.

If you had an entire week and unlimited resources to do whatever you'd like, what would you do and why?

I don't have to be noble and save the world, do I? You're meaning a week of fun, yes?

A week in a great city like New York or D.C. or London or Paris, in a nice hotel, with days spent wandering around town and going to lots of museums.

Halloween, New Year's, or Valentine's Day?

Actually, my favorite is Mother's Day cause I get to choose what we do (usually, canoeing) and somebody else cooks and then there is cake.

BOOK QUESTIONS

In many ways, Greetings from Planet Earth is a political novel. Theo's father did not return from the Vietnam War, and Theo strives to understand and find out what happened to him. At the same time, the thrills and excitement of the great space race were in full swing. I'm wondering whether or not you had our contemporary situation in mind while writing this novel set in the 1970s.

The entire time I worked on the novel, we had soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and so thinking about our current conflicts has certainly informed my thinking about Vietnam. I live in a small town, and the war has touched us. I know people whose son or husband or brother has gone over to fight. I've also read articles and listened to stories on NPR about the toll the war is taking on soldiers and their families. The parallels to Vietnam seem very real.

Secrecy and the dangers of keeping secrets in families play an important thematic role in Greetings from Planet Earth. Was this a theme you thought important when designing the book, or did it develop organically while you were writing?

It's something that I wanted to explore, almost from the start. To me, it fits in with the theme of communication, which is 'tapped on' in lots of ways--how various family members communicate (or not) with each other, the tape recording Theo is making throughout the book to an unnamed listener, and, of course, the Golden Record that will one day communicate with a being way out in space.

Mr. Meyer, Theo's science teacher, is an extraordinary teacher. He's unafraid to mix the "big questions" (Who are we?) with the study of science. Does Mr. Meyer have a real-life model and, if so, can I arrange for him to teach in my kids' school district? Seriously, he's one of the most amazing teachers I've found in children's fiction.

Isn't he great? Mr. Meyer isn't based on any one person, but he does have what I've seen other great teachers demonstrate—a genuine respect for his students and their view of the world.

I loved Janet--Theo's older sister--and was wondering what it would be like to see the same scenario in Greetings from Planet Earth from her point of view. Is this something you've considered?

I love Janet, too! As I was writing, I did often think how different the book would have been from Janet's perspective. And it's funny you ask, because some of my favorite adult books do tell parts of the same story from different perspectives--books such as The March: A Novel, by E.L. Doctorow; Red Water, by Judith Freeman, and Three Junes, by Julia Glass. It's a technique I really like, and one I'd like to try in a novel some day.

What can we look forward to next from Barbara Kerley?

I have a picture book coming out in May with National Geographic called A Little Peace. It shares the same format as my other two NGS titles, A Cool Drink of Water and You and Me Together--simple text, stunning photographs, and an underlying sensibility of how much people are truly alike, all over the world. The focus of the book is that we all have the power to spread a little peace. Then in Spring '08 I have another picture book biography coming out with Scholastic called What To Do About Alice? It's about Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice, in her younger years known as "Princess Alice" and later, in old age, as "the other Washington Monument." hah. Alice was one of America's first celebrities, which drove her father crazy. He once said, "I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." And I've just begun a new historical fiction novel, centered around another "Oh, cool!" bit of science. Fun stuff!

Oh, no...

I've been interviewed by the 7-Imp girls. Thanks, Jules and Eisha!

A note on the photo: I hate it*, but it's the only photo of me from the past 2 years that doesn't have a kid in the frame. (I'm the family photographer.) My mother-in-law, who is a "real" photographer, took it and had some fun playing with the color.
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*I hate the photo--I must admit to vanity here--because it makes me look fluffy, shall we say.