The Tail of Liz Kessler
By Day Lilico
This year at the North Cornwall Book Festival, we kicked off a jam-packed weekend with a day full of events for children and young adults. The first of the incredible line-up of authors this year was the mythical Liz Kessler, who was born in Southport but now lives in our own lovely Cornwall where she writes fantasy books for children about mermaids, fairies, time-travel and superpowers. Kessler has written over a dozen books for children and young adults, most notably her six-book series, The Tail of Emily Windsnap, about a half-mermaid. Not having read the Emily Windsnap books myself, I enlisted the help of a handy expert to write this article: 11-year-old Grace Daley from the South East coast of Cornwall, who had recently started reading the series.
D: So, Grace! What was it that made you look at that book [The Tail of Emily Windsnap], pick it up off the shelf and read it?
G: I like mermaids, because they have pretty tails and swim in the sea.
D: What did you like about the book?
G: The fact that Emily turns into a mermaid whenever she gets in water and I’d like to be like that.
D: Would you like to go to mermaid school?
G: Probably not because it’s school, and I don’t like school. But if it was a choice between normal school and mermaid school, yes celebrex 100 mg.
D: Tell me about Emily Windsnap.
G: She is a girl growing up all her life without a father and she lives on a creaky old boat and she has moved to a new school and no one there is nice to her. She’s basically like anyone would be having no father.
D: Would you say that you identified with the character of Emily Windsnap? Would you have made the same choices as her or would you have done things differently?
G: Probably different things. Like I wouldn’t swim out in the sea at night, not knowing much about mermaid-ism. It was a bit silly, I might catch hyperthermia and the sea at night is scary.
D: Is Emily Windsnap brave do you think?
G: More curious than brave. Exceedingly curious.
D: What other characters did you like or dislike?
G: I like the mermaid she meets in the sea, Shona, who shows her about mermaid school. She seemed Cheap Oakleys nice, I’d like to be friends with her. I wouldn’t like to hang out with the bad guys, or have a hypnotised mother, or have a father in a mermaid prison cell.
D: Did you think the setting of the book was like where you live in Cornwall?
G: No, I don’t live on a boat. But like, I imagined where they live to be like having a street right behind the beach. More like in the North.
D: Liz Kessler lives in Cornwall: Could you tell in her writing that she loves the sea?
G: Yes, I think so.
D: How would you describe the writing style?
G: I think she writes a lot about details and emotions and I like that.
D: Liz Kessler used to be a journalist and a teacher: Do you think that shows in her writing?
G: Yes because I feel that she knows a lot about stuff, like she puts in loads of details about the underwater world. The book seems very well researched.
D: Liz Kessler wrote poems when she was a child, and wanted to be a poet. Would you like to be a poet?
G: I’d like to be many things, and I think I’d quite like being a poet. I like writing poems and writing stories and stuff even though I’m not very good at it and don’t finish things. Writing stories is hard.
D: If you could change one thing about the book, what would you change?
G: Well, unlike other books, in Cheap china Jerseys The Tail of Emily Windsnap I’ve never gone:“oh my goodness why on earth did you do that?” and stuff, like I do in some other books. I hockey jerseys don’t think I want to change any of it.
Would you read more books by Liz Kessler?
G: Yes, definitely.
Our expert has spoken! All this and more at the North Cornwall cheap nba jerseys Book Festival 2016, 21st-23rd October at St Endellion.
The Tail of Emily Windsnap series is published by Orion Children’s Books
Photo Credit: Daniel Hall Photography
