Paula Xiberras
Danielle Wood, Heather Rose
Serendipity is defined as ‘a happy accident’ or ‘pleasant surprise’, and ‘finding something without looking for it’.
The latter at first seems in contradiction with the new novel ‘Serendipity’ by Angelica Banks (the pen name of Tassie authors Danielle Wood and Heather Rose), where our heroine, Tuesday McGillycuddy sets off intentionally searching for her missing mother, Serendipity and along the way finds many ‘happy accidents’ and ‘pleasant surprises’.
This wonderful adventure novel for young people is filled by Danielle and Heather with childhood memories of stories familar to all of us, a pinch of Poppins (flying) and Peter Pan (pirate ships) and a host of others. Amidst all the fun is the message that books and their creation can be incredible, fantastic and a great deal of fun and the underlying message that even the smallest girl’s actions can have a powerful affect.
Danielle and Heather were kind enough to answer some of my questions about ‘Finding Serendipity’ recently.
‘Finding Serendipity,’ published by Allen & Unwin is out now at all good bookstores and online.
Heather Rose and Danielle Woods (aka Angelica Banks)
Finding Serendipity celebrates books and writing, with a heroine who is an accident author, a father who is a wordsmith and a young boy who is an accomplished author himself. How did you come up with the idea for this book?
We first came up with the idea in Danielle’s kitchen in Fern Tree, when there was snow falling outside and the house was full of small children. We started to think up characters and ideas and it wasn’t long before we had come up with the notion of Tuesday following her famous author mother into the place where stories come from. We have both read and loved many wonderful children’s books, both when we were children ourselves, and more recently, as parents. Some of our favourites are Barbara Sleigh’s Carbonel, JRR Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Roald Dahl’s Danny, Champion of the World. We are also really inspired by our young readers and by how passionately children can love the books that are important to them.
What do you want children to take away from this book?
We want them to take away the sense of satisfaction that comes from finishing any good book (we hope our book is good). We also hope that they will learn, or be reminded, that adventures are right there, waiting to happen to people who are willing to take their own imagination and a pen, and see where those two things take them.
It’s refreshing to see a battle of rhymes instead of rapier (considering we have pirates) near the conclusion of the book. Do you hope children will see the power and the fun aspects of poetry by reading books like Finding Serendipity?
Yes. We had a huge amount of fun writing the rhyming couplets, and we enjoyed recreating special parts of our relationship with our parents as Tuesday learns the art of rhyming from her father, Denis.
Although Vivienne is small in size she is a powerful character. She has one elf ear in fantasy and presumably one human ear in reality, but her wings are wounded. Is there any special symbolism in her character?
Vivienne is proof that you don’t have to be big to be brave. We wanted her to be a quintessential adventure heroine, full of courage, but also tenderness for animals and with the capacity to be a truly great friend to Tuesday. Both Tuesday and Vivienne are daughters of Serendipity Smith, in a way, and they share quite a few characteristics.
Do you, like Morris Gleitzman, believe that the’ magic spaces’ where authors and readers meet are unique to each individual? What are your feelings if readers see something in your book that you didn’t consciously intend?
We think it’s great if readers find something personal and individual in a text!
Can we find serendipity or does it find us?
You may be able to find Serendipity if you get to The End; read the book and find out! 😉
Are we going to see more adventures starring the characters from Finding Serendipity?
Absolutely. The second Angelica Banks novel, which is currently in progress, is called A Week Without Tuesday. And, we imagine there will be a third book to make up a trilogy.
