The Emperor's New Clones • Early Reader

I have a new early reader book coming out today!

The Emperor's New Clones is illustrated by Martin Chatterton  and is the second book Martin and I have done together for Egmont's Bananas early reader series, the first being Danny Dreadnought Saves the World.

The idea for book came to me when I was thinking up ideas for another book, Skyboy and other Stupendous Science Stories. As the title suggests, that book contains a collection of stories with a science theme, so I began by writing out a list of scientific fields and then tried to come up with a story idea to go with each of them. One of the fields on my list was “Genetics and Cloning”. As soon as I thought about clones, the punning title “The Emperor’s New Clones” popped into my head and I came up with idea of Robbie Remus, the reluctant boy Emperor, to fit it.

In the end, I didn’t use that story in the Skyboy collection, but I expanded the outline and offered it to Egmont for their Bananas series. Series editor Hanna Sandford liked the idea, so I wrote it up as a story and, a couple of drafts later, Egmont agreed to take it. 

One thing that was missing from the early drafts is the blasterball match at the beginning of the book. Blasterball is a futuristic sport, played in zero-gravity, in which two teams score points by firing a ball into the opposing team's black hole. Robbie is passionate about the sport, but has to give up playing it when he becomes Galactic Emperor. However he’s able to take it up again thanks to Professor Parton and his Duplitron cloning machine. Although Robbie’s love of blasterball was described in the first draft, I’d neglected to show him actually playing it. Following the classic writing rule of “show, don’t tell”, Hannah pointed out that the story would work better if we showed the reader what Robbie was missing out on. So I wrote a new opening scene that drops the reader straight into the closing minutes of a blasterball match. 

The book starts with a blasterball match. I love the "pigtail grommets" Martin drew in the girl's helmet in the foreground.

I give a lot of thought to character names and occasionally use them to sneak in little in-jokes or references that some older readers might possibly pick up on. There are a couple in this story. Miss Sourdust, the overly officious Imperial Assistant is named after Sourdust, the similarly officious Master of Ritual in Mervyn Peake’s magnificent Gormenghast books. The second reference is even more tenuous and geeky; cloning genius Professor Parton is named after Dolly Parton the country singer, who also gave her name to Dolly the sheep (the first animal to be successfully cloned from another adult).

Professor Parton (left) is named after Dolly Parton (middle), who also gave her name to Dolly the cloned sheep (right).

I really liked Martin Chatterton's illustrations for our first Banana book, Danny Dreadnought Saves the World and Martin’s energetic comic-strip-like style is a great fit for this story too. He’s really captured the excitement of the Blasterball game (see spread above) and I love the zany-looking cast of multi-species characters he’s created. 

Martin Chatterton's illustrations include some weird and wonderful alien characters.

Here's a trailer for the book.



The cloned versions of Robbie are practically identical. See if you can tell them apart on this activity sheet.

Click the image to download the activity sheet.

Visit THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLONES page on my web site

Danny Dreadnought Saves the World • Early Reader

I have a new early reader book coming out next week!

Danny Dreadnought Saves the World is illustrated by Martin Chatterton and is and my first book for Egmont's Bananas series.

Little Danny Dreadnought is fearless. So much so that his parents are worried about him and decide that he must learn to be afraid. But no matter what they try – skydiving, swimming with sharks, spending the night in a haunted house – Danny remains unshaken. Fortunately, when Earth is invaded by the fearsome Bugulons, Danny's fearlessness saves the day.

The story was inspired by the German folktale The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, which was included in the collections of the Brothers Grimm. In that story a fearless youth sets out to learn how to shudder. After various adventures the youth spends three nights in a haunted castle and drives out its evil occupants, earning himself great riches and a princess’s hand in marriage. At the end of the story the princess finally makes the youth shudder by pouring a bucket of cold water, filled with fishes, over him.

Richard Wagner reinterpreted the story in Siegfried, his operatic retelling of the Norse myth of Sygurd, but gave it a far more satisfying ending. In Wagner’s opera, Siegfried finally learns what fear is when he mistakenly thinks that his sweetheart Brünnhilde is dead. And a similar ending was used by scriptwriter Anthony Minghella for Fearnot a 1988 TV adaptation of the Grimm’s tale for Jim Henson’s excellent Storyteller series. The Storyteller is one my family's favourite TV series. If you've never seen it, here's a clip.



I thought the plot could make a great picture book and set about adapting it to into a contemporary setting with the youth’s role being taken by a little girl, Daisy Dreadnought. My early drafts of the story were quite close to the Grimm original, with Daisy spending the night in a creepy castle, haunted by a trio of spiteful aristocratic spooks. The romantic Wagnerian ending wasn’t appropriate for such a young heroine, but I wanted an ending that felt similarly satisfying so, after banishing the ghosts from the castle, Daisy returns home to find her parents aren’t there. Thinking they’ve abandoned her, Daisy finally feels afraid, before her parents return home and allay her fears.

I sent this draft to several picture book publishers, but none were interested. One editor commented that the haunted house setting made it seem like a Halloween story, which would limit its appeal for the rest of the year. I still felt the story had potential so I did another draft. Bearing in mind the Halloween comment, I replaced the family of ghosts with an army of alien invaders – the fearsome Bugulons. I showed this revised version to publishers and, while none wanted it as a picture book, Egmont took it as a first reader for their Bananas series.

Adapting the story into a first reader was relatively easy. One of the nice things about the Bananas series is that, like picture books, they have full colour illustrations on every page. And, while the pages are smaller than those of a picture book, there are twice as many to tell the story in. One thing I had to change was Daisy’s gender. Editor Hannah Sandford explained to me that there were already lots of Bananas books featuring plucky heroines, so it would be nice to have a story with a plucky hero for a change – so Daisy became Danny!

A crestfallen Bugulon

Although the story features many scary situations, it’s meant to be funny, so I was keen that it should be illustrated by someone with a comical flair. I often suggest possible illustrators for my books and Martin Chatterton was one of the illustrators I suggested for Danny Dreadnought; I’ve always liked Martin’s style and knew that he’d already illustrated some Bananas books. So I was pleased that Egmont agreed that he’d be a good choice and delighted when Martin agreed to illustrate the book. Martin’s illustrations have exactly the whacky comic book feel that I was hoping for and I’m particularly pleased with the way he’s drawn the Bugulons, the intergalactic bullies who try to take over the Earth. His illustration of the Huge Scary Spaceship is magnificently menacing and I love the way he’s captured the Bugulon’s sense of disappointment and defeat at the end of the story.

Martin is also illustrating another story that I’ve written for the Bananas series, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what he does with that.

Here's a trailer for the book.

And if you're feeling particularly daring, you might like to try your hand at Danny's Scare Search puzzle.

Click the image to download the puzzle

Visit the DANNY DREADNOUGHT page on my web site

Coming to a bookshop or library near you in 2015!

Some coming attractions

2014 was a quiet year for me publishing-wise. Although several of my previously published books came out in new editions, I only had one new book published, which was Skyboy and other Stupendous Science Stories.

I'm pleased to say that next year will be somewhat busier and I have five (or possibly four and two-thirds) brand new books coming out in 2015. Here's a preview of each of them.

February

A Spot of Bother was illustrated by my longtime collaborator Vanessa Cabban and published by Walker Books. It's a follow up to The Pig’s Knickers and features the same cast of characters including the rather self-centred Pig. In this story Pig is horrified to discover that his spotless appearance has been spoiled by a cherry stain. His friends try to help, but the more they try to clean the spot, the bigger it gets.

This is the seventh book that Vanessa and I did together and I'm extremely sad to say that it will be our last as Vanessa passed away shortly before Christmas. She was a wonderful person, funny, mischievous and forthright, and a terrific illustrator to work with and I will miss her greatly.
Preorder this book on Amazon UK or Amazon US

Published on the same day as A Spot of Bother, Danny Dreadnought Saves the World is illustrated by Martin Chatterton and is and my first book for Egmont's Bananas first reader series. Little Danny Dreadnought is fearless. So much so that his parents are worried about him and decide that he must learn to be afraid. But no matter what they try – skydiving, swimming with sharks, spending the night in a haunted house – Danny remains unshaken. Fortunately, when Earth is invaded by the fearsome Bugulons, Danny's fearlessness saves the day. This story was inspired by the Grimm's tale The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was.
Preorder this book on Amazon UK or Amazon US

Next up is The Clockwork Dragon. This book might only be described as two-thirds new because it’s a reworking of Tom’s Clockwork Dragon which was published in 2008. Unfortunately that book quickly went out of print quite quickly but Oxford University Press decided that the story deserved a second chance and asked me to write another draft which has been illustrated by Weasels and Nuts in Space creator Elys Dolan. Elys has a great flair for whimsical detail and, as well as completely reinventing the dragon, has populated the book’s illustrations with a supporting cast of wonderfully wacky characters. I've already written a second story featuring the book's young heroes Max and Lizzie so, if this book proves popular, they could be back with more clever clockwork contraptions.
Preorder this book on Amazon UK or Amazon US

May

Fast and Furry Racers; The Silver Serpent Cup is also published by Oxford University Press. This book is illustrated by Ed Eaves and the story was inspired by a set of souped-up vehicle models that Ed made for his college degree show several years ago. Ed sent me some photos of the models and suggested that they might plant the seed for a story – which they did. The Silver Serpent Cup is about a no-holds-barred race between a motley assortment of animals in an equally motley assortment of vehicles; cars, planes, boats, submarines – there’s even a tiger racing in a train. We’re hoping it will be the first of a series of Fast and Furry Racers books.
Preorder this book on Amazon UK 

Autumn

And my second book for Egmont's Bananas series, The Emperor's New Clones, should be published some time in Autumn 2015. This story, which is also illustrated by Martin Chatterton, is set in the distant future. Rodney Remus's dream of becoming a professional blasterball player falls apart when young Rodney is chosen as the new Galactic Emperor. Instead of scoring goals on the blasterball court, Rodney has to spend his days at tedious ceremonies and on endless official visits. But then Rodney meets the brilliant scientist Professor Parton whose clever cloning machine offers a way back to blasterball.

I'll be telling you lots more about all of these books on this blog. So watch this space for more details!