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INTERVIEW with NAYU'S READING CORNER
Why are you interested in death? |
Book Trust
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I don't have a thing about death. In fact, I'm scared rigid of horror movies and I dread Halloween because those freaky masks the kids wear give me nightmares. I did once try to be a Goth in the '90s, but I wasn't very successful - apparently, you're not allowed to wear a coquettish splash of yellow when you're a Goth. Or smile. That was about as close as I got to having a dark side. And I guess it seems pretty odd that I chose Death as the topic for my first middle grade comedy series.
The idea came to me when I was browsing bookshops and noticing the trends; there was a lot of goofy literature addressing almost all aspects of life - school, family, pets, holidays. But there wasn't a lot of death going on, which I thought was odd. After all, the notion of death is something we have to live with... As I started to mull that sentence over, it became literal. Imagine living with Death. I did imagine it, but not with death as some gloomy intangible thing, but as a jolly person just doing his job... (that's my literary splash of yellow). Life is there to be laughed at and I reckoned we should have a go at death, too. Of course, as well as laughing at the spooky ins and outs of death-bringing, death administration and formal death uniform, the books do confront our natural instinct to escape it. For a kids adventure story, what could be more fun and full of capers than running away from death? But aside from the comedy, it also opens up the opportunity for frank discussion. Why does death happen? Should we fear it? And if we know it's coming what can we do about it? I hope the kids reading Jim Reaper will work out their own answers to that question. But for me, and for the characters of Jim Reaper the message is clear - if we know it's coming, then we have to live while we're living, and make the most of every day. For Granny Maggot, that could be by swinging from the handles in a double-decker bus; for Jim, by cherishing his family; for Will it might be by spending more time with Maximus, his pet giant African land snail... Jim Reaper is about death - there's no escaping that - but it's actually life that has the starring role. Go to Nayus' blog |
