BIO

Louisa Young was a freelance journalist for many years, writing for national newspapers, motorcycle magazines and women's magazines. She studied history at Trinity College Cambridge, and has of course worked as a street performer, a motorcycle messenger, a cocktail waitress, a singer, and so on. Her first book, A GREAT TASK OF HAPPINESS: THE LIFE OF KATHLEEN SCOTT, was a biography of her grandmother, the sculptress widow of Scott of the Antarctic. She is also the author of a romantic adventure trilogy for adults and THE BOOK OF THE HEART, a cultural history of our most symbolic organ. LIONBOY, cowritten with her daughter Isabel, is her first children's novel. She lives in London with her daughter, their lizard Zizou, several spiders and a dead tortoise.

Zizou Corder is Louisa Young and Isabel Adomakoh Young, whose names are too long to fit on the cover of a book. Louisa is an adult and has written five adult books and far too many newspaper and magazine articles; Isabel is a kid and has written mostly schoolwork. The original Zizou is Isabel's Lizard. This is its first novel. They all live in London. Only one goes to school.

INTERVIEW

February 6, 2004

Kidsreads.com Founder Carol Fitzgerald and her 9-year-old son Cory recently interviewed the mother-daughter writing team of Louisa Young and Isabel Adomakoh Young --- together known as Zizou Corder --- about LIONBOY, their first children's novel. Louisa and Isabel talk about the process of writing the book, reveal who their favorite characters are and offer readers a preview of the next two installments in this spellbinding trilogy.

KRC: What made you decide to write a book together?

ZC: Isabel asked me to --- we had been telling bedtime stories together and it grew out of that.

KRC: How did you work together on the story concept and the writing? Do you write an outline or just talk the story through?

ZC: We just talk, and then write, and talk some more, and see what develops. It's quite haphazard really. We do it in the bath, or on the bus.

KRC: What was the most difficult part of collaborating on a book?

ZC: It hasn't been difficult at all. It's a natural part of how we are together.

KRC: The most rewarding?

ZC: The whole thing --- having a project that we do together, so wherever we are we have it to play with. It's like following the same team, or loving the same pop star.

KRC: Isabel, was it difficult to balance writing the book with your schoolwork and your extracurricular activities?

ZC: No, because Mum does the actual writing and what we do together is stuff we'd just do anyway.

KRC: Louisa, you had previously written books for adults as well as newspaper and magazine articles. What made you decide to write a book for younger readers?

ZC: Isabel asked me to, and came up with all these lovely ideas that just got me going.

KRC: We have read that you both are allergic to cats. Why did you choose them to be the animals that you wrapped your story around?

ZC: There's this idea that writers choose what they're going to write about, but actually it doesn't work that way at all. You write what comes, and you write what you can. Also, you don't 'wrap a story round' a character. The story comes out of who the character is. They are very profoundly connected.

KRC: Since Charlie's parents are looking for a cure for asthma, we have to ask, do either of you have asthma?

ZC: Yes, Isabel is asthmatic, has been for years.

KRC: Many times in the book you talk about prejudice and bigotry. Is this a message you want readers to think about in their everyday lives?

ZC: Do we talk about it? Certainly it comes up in the story, as it comes up in life. Readers no doubt deal with it in their own way when they come across it. It's probably not our job to tell them what to think about --- though we are very much in favor of thinking in general.

KRC: From reading LIONBOY you seem to like the circus. Are we right? If so, what is your favorite circus act? And do you have a favorite circus troupe that you enjoy watching?

ZC: Actually, we prefer imaginary circuses because then you don't have to deal with things like real animals being kept in unsuitable captivity and being made to do tricks to amuse human beings. We saw some lions and tigers recently in a lorry in a really cold car park, in the middle of a city. They were part of a circus. They were all sulking, or pacing to and fro repetitively, which is a sign of animal distress. It just made us feel a bit ill. We love acrobats though --- trapeze, high wire, all that. Love it.

KRC: As you are both women it surprises us that your lead character is a plucky little boy. Is there a reason you wrote him as a boy instead of a girl?

ZC: Because he was a boy. Some people are.

KRC: Do each of you have a favorite character you created in LIONBOY? If so, why is that particular character your favorite?

ZC: We love them all! Especially King Boris and Sergei --- they're a gas to write; the Lions, because they're not like human beings; and Rafi, because he's so horrible. But Charlie is really our most favorite because he is us. He is every kid.

KRC: We love it when you call Rafi "Rude Slimy Thug." By calling him that readers see exactly who he is, in a second. In real life, do you make up nicknames for people you like --- and those you do not?

ZC: Funnily enough, in the UK edition he's called Fancy Slimy Git, which is a bit different, though we don't know quite what it would mean to Amercians. 'Git' is a common insult over here, even though literally it means female camel (in Arabic), which you wouldn't have thought would take off as a general term of abuse, would you?

Our composer, Robert Lockhart, who wrote the tunes (they're on CD as well --- www.fabermusic.com), is really good with nicknames, but they're often very rude. I'm 'the Flat-Chested Brunette' (because I'm blonde and not at all flat-chested) and Isabel is 'Madame La Trompeteuse' because she blows her nose while he's asleep. We call him Anatole, after Bertie Wooster's aunt's chef, in the PG Wodehouse books, because he's a good cook. Or Anatolia, if he's cooking Turkish food. Or Hanato, if he's doing Japanese. Yes, it's all very silly.

KRC: Isabel, have your friends read the book? If so, what are they saying about it?

ZC: We gave a copy to everyone in my class at school, and they were all really pleased. But now our teacher is making us write essays about it and do storyboards, and he's reading it aloud really boringly even though most of them finished reading it months ago --- so we're all getting a bit fed up with it.

KRC: What is your advice for other children who want to write books?

ZC: Write! And read. Do stuff so you get loads of ideas. And don't get stuck rewriting the same thing over and over. Start new things.

KRC: Isabel, after writing a book, do you read books differently trying to figure out what the writer is trying to do? Or can you just still read for fun?

ZC: I read for fun, of course. You do notice mistakes more, though: spelling or grammar, or bits where the plot doesn't work.

KRC: How many books are in the series? What can you tell us about the next book? And when will it be out?

ZC: There are three books altogether. The second one is coming out next winter and is called THE CHASE. Charlie and the Lions get to Venice, and become involved in a revolution there. King Boris helps them, and the Venetians think that Charlie is an angel and that the mysterious creature is sent by God to save them. Then they run away on another boat to Morocco and get shipwrecked. There's a really good chameleon called Ninu, who you meet in book two; he's big in book three, as well. In book three they end up in the Caribbean ... we're writing it now. It's called THE TRUTH.