Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past by Maisie Chan

Today we welcome Maisie Chan to the blog to tell us more about her new book, Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past, which published last week!

 

ANTS and the CHINESE LABOUR CORP in NATE YU’S BLAST FROM THE PAST

Now, I must admit that I am not a fan of ants crawling over my food when I’m in a holiday rental. But I do have more respect for them since writing my new novel Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past. Each of the chapters of the book open with an ant fact and this is because my main character, Nate, is a myrmecologist (a person who studies ants).

He really wanted a dog, but ants were a compromise. He likes to watch them go about their tasks and he has a fond spot for Queen Elizabeth, the third aka Queen Betsy. She is the biggest ant in the colony, and she is washed, fed and shoved by her worker ants. She is a focal point in the colony and must be always protected, and Nate can identify with that. He’s adopted and the centre of his parent’s world, however, this is not always positive in Nate’s eyes.

We meet Nate at the beginning of the book about to start a new school in Liverpool. He tells Queen Betsy he wishes they’d stayed in the old village where he’d lived all his life up until that point. Nate’s mums wish he’d get ‘real’ friends and stop talking to the ants so much. They also want him to connect more to his Chinese roots which makes Nate feel uncomfortable. Nate does make friends with some new children at school, but also with a ghost from the Chinese Labour Corp, a young Chinese man, who appears when Nate touches an engraved shell-casing from the First World War.

When I first introduced ants, it was because my own child told me an ant fact on the way to school. It was the one about pheromones being released if you squashed an ant. The other ants will come look for the body because of the chemical that has been released. I thought it was a fantastic fact, and wanted Nate to love ants so I could use that fact in my book. I like having my main characters have interesting hobbies. The ants also mirrored the Chinese Labour Corp in the First World War, as most of the ants in a colony are worker ants and they dig tunnels and do the grunt work. This was the same as the Chinese men who were recruited by the French and British from 1917 to help with the war effort. Like the ants, the Chinese workers were strong and worked hard. I hadn’t planned on making that analogy when I started writing about ants, but it seems to fit perfectly.

Nate initially keeps his love of ants under wraps as in his old school he was bullied for being different. Him and his two new friends decide to help Jirou, who is the ghost who doesn’t know why he’s appeared and later in the book, the ants and the ghost have a special bond. I think it’s always wonderful to learn new things when I read children’s books and I hope that when people read Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past, they

come away feeling like they’ve read about untold history and maybe they will want to find out more about ants too!

Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past by Maisie Chan is out 12th June, published by Piccadilly Press

 

Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.