On Writing a Portal Fantasy for Early Readers
Candy Gourlay’s new book Mike Falls Up takes the beginning reader through a portal to the other side of the world. We were fascinated by Candy’s post about writing for such a young audience. It is an excellent read!
Candy Gourlay’s new book Mike Falls Up takes the beginning reader through a portal to the other side of the world. We were fascinated by Candy’s post about writing for such a young audience. It is an excellent read!
And then I tell them that if I were to take a giant barbecue stick and stick it in the Philippines, it would come out on the other side of the world, in London – how the children gasp!
The realisation that people live on the other side of the world is quite something to get your head around. I elicit more gasps by telling them that when it’s night time in the Philippines, it’s day time in London, and when I’m flying to the Philippines there for a visit, I am flying to tomorrow, because it’s eight hours ahead in the Philippines.
When I’m homesick for my family on the other side of the world, I like to imagine what it would be like to have a portal that would easily transport me from chilly, grey London to the arms of my family in hot and sticky Philippines.
It’s a bit like when Alice falls into the Rabbit Hole or Lucy walks into a wardrobe and finds herself in snowy Narnia or Harry Potter pushes his trolley into a pillar in King’s Cross Station and finds Platform 9 3/4!
A few years ago, an earthquake created fissures in a famous tourist attraction in the Philippines called the Chocolate Hills, a geological formation that turned brown in the dry season, making it look like scoops of chocolate.
I thought an earthquake fissure would be a perfect portal for a character to visit the other side of the world!
In Mike Falls Up (splendidly illustrated by Carles Ballesteros) is about a boy who falls into an earthquake fissure in the Chocolate Hills …
Together they go on an adventure in the middle of the Earth (where they meet a third character, but no spoilers!).
The book is part of Little Tiger Press’s gorgeous Colour Fiction Series (link: https://littletiger.co.uk/colour-fiction-series) – fully illustrated stories that gently introduce a young picture book reader to slightly longer texts.
For the past decade, I have mostly written novels for middle grade and teen readers averaging 50,000 words each, with sophisticated language and elaborate plots, so it was an interesting challenge to create this story – it had to be fast paced, so that the new reader would not get bored; it had to be a page turning adventure so that the reader would feel compelled to read to the end, and feel hugely rewarded for their effort.
And unlike a novel for older readers (where I work for years alone), I had to work closely (though virtually) – from beginning to end – with illustrator Carles and laser-eyed editor Jane Harris, to combine my words and the visual world of the book.
It’s so exciting to think that Mike Falls Up will could be a young reader’s first taste of a portal fantasy – and even more exciting to think of all the other worlds they will soon discover in the pages of books!
And here’s a fun fact: some incredibly smart, sciency people have actually calculated how long it would take for someone to fall through a hole that leads straight through the center of the Earth and is large enough to comfortably accommodate you while flailing your arms. (To keep calculations simple, they ignored air resistance). Are you ready for the answer? 42 minutes!
Mike Falls Up, written by Candy Gourlay, illustrated by Carles Ballesteros, published by Little Tiger Press is available now.
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