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I started by accident actually. I used to work as an editor at a children’s book company
called Scholastic and we were supposed to be coming up with a new series for girls.
And I have always had a fascination with the idea of twins or triplets which is really
strange because you know now I have twins myself but I came up with the idea of identical
triplet girls who looked exactly the same on the outside but were incredibly different
from each other on the inside. I was supposed to get someone else to write
this book. But when I had come up with the girls names, their characters and even their
pets and thought about things they might do I suddenly realised that I didn’t actually
want anyone else to do this and I had never written a book on my own before, I had only
edited other peoples books. But it was an idea I did not want to give away to anyone
else. And I wrote the first book on a train, on the floor of a train basically, because
I was living in Reading and working in London and those trains were so busy that I could
never get a seat.
The mother of three still lives and works from her Reading (UK) home.
Her three boys - including the twins - are among her biggest fans, and sometime, critics.
Penguin had refused smoky bacon crisps. You should’ve said smoky bacon instead I think
it sounds better!
The nicest thing is getting letters from children saying, I really love your books, and please
would you write one about my dog? It’s always the main question I get. Please could you
write a book about this particular dog and call it Cookie which is the name of their
dog. And that’s really exciting, it’s lovely.
I write for quite a wide age range. The books start at about 6 years old, first chapter
book readers, and then the older books, the Rose and Lilly books that I write, are 9,
10, 11 so its quite an age range, which is great for me because if I get bored with writing
an older book, I can go into something completely different.
Translated into nearly a dozen languages, Holly’s stories also reflect a childhood
fascination with classical myths and animals.
The books are supposed to be about everyday children, not children who are particularly
special, particularly different, just children like them, which I think is very exciting.
And also to take away from them that the animals in these books are portrayed with more obvious
feelings than any animal you would meet. Because obviously a dog or a cat cant talk to you
about how they feel, but understand that animals do have feelings and you do need to treat
animals as though they are people who can tell you that you’re hurting their feelings
and you’re making them sad. So, we should respect and love them and not do anything
to hurt them.
Now magic is also playing a starring role in her tales…
The Rose books were suggested to me actually by an editor who said, please could you write
a book about a girl finding out how it is to become magical, how she learns to become
a magical character. And that was all she said apart from, “Please
don’t put any talking cats into it.” Unfortunately I entirely failed as far as the talking cats
were concerned. I had only put a chapter in before the talking cats arrived. I love cats,
and the idea that you could have a cat that could talk to you was even better than just
any normal cat, so I had to put one in. I think it’s wonderful to build things that
some day something magical might really happen to you and to read about characters who get
taken away to different worlds or suddenly find they can something different or special.
It’s also a great way to put adventures into lives today. I think children’s lives
today are far more controlled than they use to be. And they can put some magic into it,
into the story, that gives children a chance to go often to do amazing things which they
wouldn’t want to do today.
I am really looking forward to going to Hong Kong and speaking to children in Hong Kong
because I think that hopefully they are going to have very different views on reading and
books to children here. I’m very excited to talk to them about that and to find out
what characters they love and whether their background affects the way they read to the
children here. So it’s so exciting for me. I love talking to children what they love
about, or reading about, it’s really special and exciting and very useful as well. Children
tell you fabulous stories that you can then borrow. I do a lot of that.