Jake Hayes discusses the books that helped inspire our greatest children’s authors to create their own modern masterpieces. Diving down the rabbit hole of children’s literature, Deeper Reading revisits beloved classics and uncovers lost works of staggering genius.
Series One
The Silver Chair with Piers Torday
Piers Torday talks about the book that influenced his children’s novel The Frozen Sea – C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair from the Chronicles of Narnia.
Read the accompanying blog post here
The Lie Tree with Damaris Young
Damaris Young author of The Switching Hour and The Creature Keeper talks about the book that inspired her – The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge.
Read the accompanying blog post here
Watership Down with SF Said
SF Said, author of the Varjak Paw books and Phoenix talks about the book that inspired him to become a writer, Watership Down by Richard Adams.
Read the accompanying article here
Stig of the Dump with Sophie Kirtley
Sophie Kirtley author of Stone Age adventure The Wild Way Home talks about the book that inspired her – Clive King’s Stig of the Dump.
Read an accompanying blogpost about Stig of the Dump here
Night Birds on Nantucket with Fleur Hitchcock
Fleur Hitchcock talks about the book that made her realise not all heroines needed to be ‘nice’. Night Birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken is the third in a series that began with the Wolves of Willoughby Chase and the first to feature sparky street urchin Dido Twite as it’s protagonist. We also discuss the book’s influence on her Clifftoppers series whose characters draw on Dido’s pluck, invention and kindness.
Read an accompanying blogpost about Night Birds on Nantucket here
