AS PART of the Appledore Book Festival’s Schools’ Week, Holsworthy Community College welcomed two authors well-known for their books for children and young adults, writes Christine Williams.

On October 12, Tanya Landman, who lives in Bideford, treated 50 Year 8 students to an inspiring talk. She has been publishing books for the past ten years and last year won the prestigious Carnegie Medal for her novel ‘Buffalo Soldier’. She described her early life working in a bookshop, at Bristol Zoo and as a member of a theatre company before she moved to Devon and began writing.

She often writes about underprivileged people such as an American Indian warrior in ‘Apache’, an Aztec girl in ‘The Goldsmith’s Daughter’ and about the son of a poor puppeteer in her latest book, ‘Hell or High Water’. This novel is set in North Devon and is the story of Caleb, left alone in the world when his father is wrongfully accused of theft and sentenced to transportation.

Tanya later read an extract from it, graphically describing the discovery by Caleb of a body washed up on a beach.

As for future plans she has finished writing a book set in Roman Britain entitled ‘Beyond the Wall’, which will be published next year and she is also about to visit China for a month to promote her books.

On Thursday, October 14, the whole of Year 7 were first given a thought provoking presentation on quantum physics by Christopher Edge before he talked about his latest novel, ‘The Many Worlds of Albie Bright’. It’s about a boy who, when his mother dies of cancer, asks his father if she is really in heaven.

His father, a scientist, tells him about quantum physics and explains that some scientists believe that our universe is only one of an infinite number of parallel universes and that out there is a parallel universe where his mother never got cancer and is still alive. In that case, thinks Albie, maybe quantum physics can help me to find her. Reading about Schrodinger’s Cat in one of his father’s books, he finds a cardboard box, his mother’s laptop and a rotting banana, and sends himself to parallel worlds in search of his mother.

At the end of their presentations both authors were inundated with questions such as ‘how long does it take to write a book’ and ‘where do they get your ideas for plots’. Then they signed copies of their books and posed for photos.