SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Song of the Dolphin Boy
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.elizabethlaird.co.uk/
CITY: Richmond
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: New Zealander
LAST VOLUME: SATA 279
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Laird http://www.papertigers.org/reviews/UK/booksForKeeps/TheOgressAndTheSnake.html http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/children/article6570524.ece
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born October 21, 1943, in Wellington, New Zealand; daughter of John MacLelland (a general secretary) and Florence Marion (a homemaker) Laird; married David Buchanan McDowall (a writer), April 19, 1975; children: Angus John, William Alistair Somerled.
EDUCATION:University of Bristol, B.A. (with honors), 1966; London University, Certificate of Education, 1967; Edinburgh University, M.Litt., 1971.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Bede Mariam School, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, teacher, 1967-69; Pathway Further Education Centre, Southall, London, England, lecturer, 1972-77; full-time writer, beginning 1980. Facilitator of Story Collecting Project, Ethiopia, 1996-2001, and co-creator of Ethiopian Folktales Web site, 2010.
AVOCATIONS:Chamber music, gardening.
MEMBER:Society of Authors and Illustrators, Anglo-Ethiopian Society.
AWARDS:Carnegie Medal Award runner-up, British Library Association, 1988, for Red Sky in the Morning; Children’s Book Award, Federation of Children’s Book Groups, and Sheffield Children’s Book Award, both 1992, and Glazen Globe prize, Royal Dutch Geographical Society, 1993, all for Kiss the Dust; Smarties’ Young Judges Award, 1994, for Hiding Out; Carnegie Medal shortlist, 1996, for Secret Friends; Lancashire Book Award, 1997, for Jay; Carnegie Medal shortlist and London Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize shortlist, both 2002, both for Jake’s Tower; Hampshire Book Award, 2004, Middle East Outreach Council Youth Literature Award, 2006, and Outstanding International Book Award, U.S. Board on Books for Young People, 2007, all for A Little Piece of Ground; Scottish Arts Council Children’s Book of the Year Award, Carnegie Medal shortlist, and BBC Blue Peter Award shortlist, all 2004, and Stockport Schools Book Award, 2005, all for The Garbage King; Royal Mail Scottish Children’s Book Award shortlist and Costa Children’s Book Award shortlist, both 2007, and Carnegie Medal shortlist, 2008, all for Crusade; Christensen Foundation grant, 2010; numerous awards from U.K. reading associations.
RELIGION: Church of England (Anglican).WRITINGS
Author of school readers for Longman and Penguin, including Anita’s Big Day, Australia, Dead Man’s River, The Storm, Simon the Spy, Karen and the Artist, Americans on the Move, The Earthquake, Clara, Ask Me Again, Sugar and Candy, Americans at Home, Faces of the U.S.A., and Faces of Britain; also author of the novella The Earthquake, 2018.
SIDELIGHTS
A versatile children’s writer of picture books, beginning readers, and novels, Elizabeth Laird is perhaps best known for writing young-adult fiction such as The Garbage King and The Fastest Boy in the World. Laird melds her love of travel with her talent for writing in crafty stories set in the Middle East and East Africa: In Kiss the Dust she deals with the realities of the Kurdish rebellion in modern-day Iraq, A Little Piece of Ground examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Pea Boy, and Other Tales from Iran collects seven fables from that nation.
(open new1)In an interview in the Bookbag, Laird discussed being labeled as having humanity as the trademark of her writing. Laird emphasized that “empathy is the beginning and end of all story telling, never mind any old issues that happen to pop up along the way. If readers don’t live with and feel for the characters in a story, it ain’t a good story. It’s wanting to know what happens to them, and how they’re going to cope with it, that keeps you turning the pages.”
Laird talked about the challenges faced by writers who publish historical fiction and include characters from different cultural backgrounds than their own in a guest post in the History Girls blog. Laird concluded that “writers have a duty to do our research with the greatest care when we create characters from cultural backgrounds not our own. We should not misrepresent, belittle, or repeat ignorant misconceptions which feed hostility or prejudice. However, we have the right to invent the characters we choose, to speak with their voices and walk in their shoes. After all, if that’s not the case, we would be forced to write only about ourselves.”(close new1)
Born in New Zealand to Scottish parents, Laird has gained inspiration from her experiences as a traveler and teacher. “I always had a burning desire to travel,” Laird once told SATA, “and as soon as I possibly could, at the age of eighteen, I took off from home (with my parents’ blessing!) and went to Malaysia where I spent a year as a teacher’s aide in a boarding school for Malay girls. That experience only gave me a taste for more, so after I had graduated in French (which involved a wonderful spell as a student in Paris), I headed off to Ethiopia, and worked for two years in a school in Addis Ababa. In those days the country was at peace, and it was possible to travel to the remotest parts by bus and on horseback.”
Laird’s experience in Ethopia provided the background for a series of easy readers for teaching purposes, as well as for The Miracle Child: A Story from Ethiopia, which was written in collaboration with Abba Aregawi Wolde Gabriel. Laird’s second adaptation of Ethiopian religious folklore, The Road to Bethlehem: An Ethiopian Nativity, presents an earthly account of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus, presenting an alternative to the standard Christian version that credits Mary with an active role as healer and saint. A reviewer for the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books wrote that The Road to Bethlehem combines familiar themes of the New Testament “with popular legends and miracles into a cohesive narrative.”
Laird was inspired to create When the World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia when her travels to that nation introduce her to traditional storytellers. According to reviewers, many of the tales in When the World Began are reminiscent of Aesop’s fables or stories by the Brothers Grimm. According to School Library Journal contributor Ann Welton, the “tales, myths, and extended jokes paint a picture of a vibrant culture, open to the world around it.” Laird offers retellings of nine fables in A Fistful of Pearls, and Other Tales from Iraq, a work flavored by “flavored with humor and cultural details,” according to Carolyn Angus in School Library Journal. The collection also garnered praise from London Sunday Times critic Nicolette Jones for “its variety of characters’ voices and its clear and lively style.”
Laird retells myths and legends from ancient Iran in Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. Originally an epic poem composed more than 1,000 years ago by Ferdowsi, Shahnameh contains fantastical tales of great rulers and noble warriors that are “written in brief, descriptive narrative peppered with conversation that makes the principal characters more real and the tales more appealing,” according to School Library Journal contributor Susan Scheps. Trickster stories highlight Laird’s anthology Pea Boy and Other Tales from Iran, a book featuring what Rochman described as “stories [that] are universal with their … themes of betrayal, love, and redemption.”
Laird’s novel Secret Friends concerns a newly immigrated family living in England. Rafaella feels like an outsider at school but makes a new friend in Lucy. Because Lucy does not want to risk becoming a social outcast as well, she gives her “secret friend” Rafaella the pejorative nickname “Earwig” because of the girl’s large ears. Taunted and teased on the playground for this physical anomaly, Rafaella finally undergoes corrective surgery. When she dies of heart failure during the operation, Lucy is haunted with guilt for her behavior. Citing Secret Friends for “the honesty of Lucy’s first-person narrative, [and] her uneasiness as a bystander to the bullying,” Booklist reviewer Hazel Rochman added that what gives “unexpected depth to the outsider theme” is Lucy’s envy of Rafaella’s happy home life, a stark contrast to her own.
Laird’s interest in foreign lands inspired Kiss the Dust. Set in Iraq, this novel tells the story of Tara Khan, a twelve-year-old Kurdish girl whose family is forced to relocate when the Iraqi government attempts to suppress the Kurds. Tara’s family escapes first to Iran, where she is forced to adopt a highly conservative Muslim lifestyle, and finally to England, where she confronts an entirely secular culture. While some critics commented on the graphic depiction of violence in Laird’s story, a critic for Kirkus Reviews suggested that the author “builds a sympathetic portrait of the embattled Kurds and a compelling portrait of Tara” and cited Kiss the Dust as an “important contribution to the growing number of refugee stories.”
With Forbidden Ground Laird focuses on a love story that challenges conventions and is set in an unnamed North African country. Hannah has just moved to the city from a more-traditional rural culture and finds it difficult adjusting to the cosmopolitan moral values she encounters there. These internal conflicts increase when she meets Sami, who may or may not be sincere in his professed love for her. George Hunt noted in Books for Keeps that Forbidden Ground “is a romantic, but realistic and unsentimental story; its cultural and geographic settings are vividly evoked, but the universality of the emotional dilemmas it describes gives the story a very wide relevance and appeal.” Sarah Mears concluded in School Librarian that Laird’s book presents a “readable story which provides a view of life in a modern Islamic community.”
In her young-adult novel The Garbage King Laird focuses on the street children of Ethiopia. Dani, a wealthy runaway, and Mamo, an orphan, meet in a cemetery in Addis Ababa. The pair soon joins a gang of homeless children led by Million, a young tough who teaches them to beg for money and scavenge food from the garbage. According to School Library Journal reviewer Genevieve Gallagher, “the boys become a family and both their tragedies and triumphs are painted in vivid, authentic, and often horrific detail.” The Fastest Boy in the World focuses on Solomon, an eleven-year-old Ethiopian who dreams of following in the footsteps of his country’s great distance runners. When his grandfather suddenly falls ill, Solomon embarks on a twenty-mile journey to get help. Writing in the London Times, Alex O’Connell described The Fastest Boy in the World as “a life-affirming” novel.
Crusade focuses on the unlikely relationship between a Christian and a Muslim who meet at the Siege of Acre in the late twelfth century. Adam, a British serf wishing to travel to Jerusalem, finds work as a squire for a knight serving under King Richard the Lionheart. His counterpart, Salim, serves as an assistant to Saladin’s personal physician. “Laird uses a series of encounters between the two boys as a chance to confound mutual misapprehensions,” Kathryn Hughes stated in the London Guardian, further noting that Crusade is “a sturdy attempt to show young teenagers that their Muslim contemporaries come from a culture that is as civilised and peaceable as their own—or perhaps more civilised.”
A work of historical fiction set during the Napoleonic Wars and based on the experiences of Laird’s great-great grandfather, Secrets of the Fearless follows the adventures of John Barr, a twelve year old who is pressed into the service of the British Navy. Working as a powder monkey aboard the HMS Fearless, a man o’ war patrolling the high seas, Barr is aboard when the ship’s captain undertakes a covert mission into France. There he is separated from his shipmates and left, wounded, behind enemy lines. In the London Times, Amanda Craig described Secrets of the Fearless as “an enjoyable period romp,” and Tom Adair noted in Scotland on Sunday that the “action scarcely draws breath in 300-odd pages of rowdy doings and closet skulduggery.”
Set in seventeenth-century Scotland, The Betrayal of Maggie Blair offers “a well-paced adventure that shows stubborn human nature in a thought-provoking light,” according to Horn Book critic Deirdre F. Baker. Accused of practicing witchcraft, sixteen-year-old Maggie flees her island home for the safety of the mainland, where she is taken in by relatives. When her uncle, a religious dissenter, defies the king’s authority and is taken to prison, Maggie plans a daring rescue. The Betrayal of Maggie Blair “is a beautifully crafted novel to be savored for its symbolic language, historical atmosphere, and vivid characters,” observed Corinne Henning-Sachs in School Library Journal.
(open new2)With Dindy and the Elephant, young British child Dindy has grown up largely in India on a tea plantation in Kerala. When she and her little brother, Pog, decide to explore the land, though, it becomes clear that her privileged upbringing has not prepared her for the realities and difficulties of life in India. In a review in School Librarian, Joy Court called an “uplifting story,” adding that it “gives us hope that we can all learn lessons from our colonial past.” Court also referred to Dindy as “a lovely character.”
In Welcome to Nowhere, Laird turned to her own experiences volunteering at the refugee camp in Jordan to create this novel. Twelve-year-old Omar and his family flee their home in Bosra, Syria, as the violent conflict there worsens. Taking refuge at a camp in Jordan, the family endure many hardships and uncertainties. Reviewing the book in School Librarian, Lizzie Ryder found it to be “a moving and extraordinary tale of bravery, resilience and families enhanced by some atmospheric illustrations by Lucy Eldridge. Everyone should read this book.”
In an interview in the Books for Keeps website, Laird pushed back against criticism that the ending may have been overly optimistic, saying that the future for Omar and his family is likely “very bleak. I think people will say it’s an unrealistically happy ending – but it’s not. I think it’s a very poor ending for the family. What the hell will they do in Britain?” Laird admitted: “I anticipated the question from children who might say to me ‘What’s going to happen next? Are you going to write a sequel?’ and I’d say to them ‘No, you are. What happens to the family is up to you.’ That’s really the point of the ending – I wanted the reader to think ‘What are we going to do about it?’ It’s not a wonderful dream [for them to come to Britain]. They’re scared of the culture – it’s completely alien to them. They’re worried about being good Muslims here, and they’re worried, quite rightly, about racism and Islamophobia.”
Laird published the novel Song of the Dolphin Boy in 2018, which combines elements of ancient legends from Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland. Young Finn is an outcast in his coastal village as most believe his father killed his mother. When he falls into the sea, he learns of his ability to swim exceptionally well. He follows a dolphin and communicates with it in its language. When he reports this to his father, Finn learns that his mother was a selkie, a dolphin that could turn into a woman. He also gets a greater appreciation for the damage that plastic is causing in the oceans and to sea life. In a review in School Librarian, Clare Morpurgo reasoned that “the story moves swiftly and there is a satisfying denouement. Humour is never far behind and Liz Laird makes sure that her readers have often cause to smile.”(close new2)
Commenting on her varied literary output, Laird remarked to Tucker, “I simply write the stories that come to me. What I really like doing is exploring emotional and psychological issues, creating characters who feel like real people, even to the extent of not always doing what I want them to do.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 1990, Carolyn Phelan, review of Rosy’s Garden: A Child’s Keepsake of Flowers, p. 1446; January 1, 1999, Hazel Rochman, review of Secret Friends, p. 878; February 15, 2001, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of When the World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia, p. 1148; December 1, 2003, Hazel Rochman, review of The Garbage King, p. 667; May 1, 2004, John Peters, review of Beautiful Bananas, p. 1563; October 15, 2006, Hazel Rochman, review of A Little Piece of Ground, p. 40; September 15, 2010, Hazel Rochman, review of Pea Boy and Other Stories from Iran, p. 62; April 15, 2011, Daniel Kraus, review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair, p. 62.
Books for Keeps, January 1, 1998, George Hunt, review of Forbidden Ground, pp. 19-20; March 1, 2010, Nicholas Tucker, “Authorgraph No. 181: Elizabeth Laird.”
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, January 1, 1988, review of The Road to Bethlehem; March 1, 2011, Kate Quealy-Gainer, review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair, p. 333.
Guardian (London, England), February 3, 1998, Joanna Carey, “Out of Africa” (profile of Laird), p. 5; January 18, 2005, Lindsey Fraser, review of Hot Rock Mountain, p. 11; October 10, 2006, Kate Agnew, review of Oranges in No Man’s Land, p. 7; July 28, 2007, Kathryn Hughes, review of Crusade, p. 16; March 1, 2008, Julia Eccleshare, review of A Fistful of Pearls and Other Tales from Iraq, p. 20.
Horn Book, September 1, 2009, Madelyn Travis, “A Bit of a Snake Pit: The Middle East Conflict in British Children’s Books,” p. 515; September 1, 2011, Deirdre F. Baker, review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair, p. 89.
Junior Bookshelf, August 1, 1988, review of Red Sky in the Morning, p. 197.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1992, review of Kiss the Dust, p. 539; February 1, 2004, review of Beautiful Bananas, p. 135; November 15, 2009, review of The Ogress and the Snake, and Other Stories from Somalia; March 15, 2011, review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair.
Kliatt, January 1, 2007, Amanda MacGregor, review of A Little Piece of Ground, p. 24.
Magpies, July 1, 1999, Lyn Linning, “Know the Author: Elizabeth Laird,” pp. 14-15; September 1, 2012, Moira Robinson, review of Shanameh: The Persian Book of Kings, p. 39.
New York Times Book Review, November 10, 1985, Vincent Crapanzano, “Takla the Wonderworker,” p. 38; December 6, 1987, Rosemary L. Bray, review of The Road to Bethlehem, p. 80; October 4, 1992, Elizabeth Cohen, review of Kiss the Dust, p. 22.
Publishers Weekly, November 10, 2003, review of The Garbage King, p. 63; March 15, 2004, review of Beautiful Bananas, p. 74; February 28, 2011, review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair, p. 58.
Race and Class, July 1, 2004, Imman Laksari-Adams, review of A Little Piece of Ground, p. 139.
School Librarian, March 22, 1997, Chris Stephenson, review of On the Run, p. 34; November 1, 1997, Sarah Mears, review of Forbidden Ground, p. 21; March 22, 2012, review of Pea Boy and Other Stories from Iran, p. 40; June 22, 2012, Andrea Rayner, review of Shanameh, p. 102; September 22, 2015, Joy Court, review of Dindy and the Elephant, p. 168; March 22, 2017, Lizzie Ryder, review of Welcome to Nowhere, p. 41; September 22, 2018, Clare Morpurgo, review of Song of the Dolphin Boy, p. 172.
School Library Journal, September 1, 1989, Barbara Chatton, review of Loving Ben, p. 252; September 1, 1991, Nancy Seiner, reviews of The Day Patch Stood Guard and The Day Sidney Ran Off, both p. 236; November 1, 2000, Ann Welton, review of When the World Began, p. 172; October 1, 2002, Jennifer Raiston, review of Jake’s Tower, p. 168; December 1, 2003, Genevieve Gallagher, review of The Garbage King, p. 156; April 1, 2004, Margaret R. Tassia, review of Beautiful Bananas, p. 118; December 1, 2006, Coop Renner, review of A Little Piece of Ground, p. 148; February 1, 2007, Kathleen Pavin, review of Jungle School, p. 90; April 1, 2009, Carolyn Angus, review of A Fistful of Pearls, and Other Tales from Iraq, p. 123; December 1, 2010, Alana Joli Abbott, review of Crusade, p. 117; April 1, 2011, Corinne Henning-Sachs, review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair, p. 177; November 1, 2012, Susan Scheps, review of Shanameh, p. 123.
Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh, Scotland), August 21, 2005, Tom Adair, review of Secrets of the Fearless, p. 8.
Sunday Times (London, England), February 24, 2008, Nicolette Jones, review of A Fistful of Pearls, and Other Tales from Iraq, p. 48.
Times (London, England), August 20, 2005, Amanda Craig, review of Secrets of the Fearless, p. 17; June 7, 2014, Alex O’Connell, review of The Fastest Boy in the World.
Voice of Youth Advocates, April 1, 2011, Deborah L. Dubois, review of The Betrayal of Maggie Blair, p. 62.
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 1, 2006, Sara Powell, review of A Little Piece of Ground, p. 42
ONLINE
Bookbag, http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/ (May 2, 2009), Jill Murphy, author interview.
Books for Keeps, http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/ (March 9, 2019), author interview.
British Council Literature website, http://literature.britishcouncil.org/ (March 9, 2019), author profile.
Edinburgh International Book Festival Ltd website, https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/ (March 9, 2018), author profile.
Elizabeth Laird website, http://www.elizabethlaird.co.uk (March 9, 2019).
History Girls, http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/ (January 18, 2016), Elizabeth Laird , “The Right to Write.”
Letterpress Project, http://www.letterpressproject.co.uk/ (April 7, 2017), author interview.
Scottish Book Trust website, http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/ (March 9, 2018), author profile.
World Literature Today Online, http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/ (September 25, 2012), Michelle Johnson, author interview.
Elizabeth Laird
(b.1943)
Elizabeth Laird, a well-respected and award-winning author of children's picture books and easy readers, is best known for her novels for young adults. Her most widely read book, Loving Ben--published in England as Red Sky in the Morning--tells about a young girl caring for her hydrocephalic baby brother. The novel was a critical success upon publication in 1989, and has continued to be a favorite in classrooms around the world. A prolific writer, Laird has paired a love of travel with a love for books in a long list of novels about Muslim countries, the Middle East, and East Africa. Her Kiss the Dust deals with the realties of a Kurdish rebellion in Iraq; Forbidden Ground is set in a nameless North African country and deals with a young girl coming to grips with moral issues; the "Wild Things" series is set in Kenya and Ethiopia and feature a core cast of characters who deal with wildlife issues in each volume.
Genres: Children's Fiction, Historical Mystery
New Books
February 2019
(hardback)
Grobblechops
May 2019
(paperback)
Song of the Dolphin Boy
August 2019
(hardback)
A House Without Walls
Series
Zippi & Zac
Arctic Blues (1989)
The Grand Ostrich Ball (1989)
Gopher Gold (1989)
High Flyers (1989)
Kookaburra Cackles (1990)
Peacock Palace Scoop (1990)
Zippi and Zac and the Grand Ostrich Ball (1991)
Dolly Rockers (1992)
Pandemonium (1994)
Wild Things
Baboon Rock (1999)
Leopard Trail (1999)
Elephant Thunder (1999)
Rhino Fire (1999)
Red Wolf (1999)
Zebra Storm (1999)
Parrot Rescue (2000)
Turtle Reef (2000)
Chimp Escape (2000)
Lion Pride (2000)
Novels
Red Sky in the Morning (1988)
Crackers (1989)
Arcadia (1990)
Kiss the Dust (1991)
Pink Ghost of Lamont (1991)
Hiding Out (1993)
Secret Friends (1996)
The Listener (1997)
Jay (1997)
Forbidden Ground (1997)
On the Run (1997)
Karen and the Artist (1999)
Eddy and the Movie Star (1999)
Jake's Tower (2001)
The Garbage King (2003)
The Ice Cream Swipe (2003)
A Little Piece of Ground (2003)
Paradise End (2004)
Secrets of The Fearless (2005)
Oranges in No Man's Land (2006)
Crusade (2007)
Lost Riders (2008)
The Witching Hour (2009)
The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (2011)
The Prince Who Walked With Lions (2012)
The Fastest Boy in the World (2014)
Dindy and the Elephant (2015)
Welcome to Nowhere (2017)
Song of the Dolphin Boy (2018)
A House Without Walls (2019)
Collections
Best of Friends (1997) (with Theresa Breslin, Adèle Geras, Jan Mark, Alison Prince, Ian Strachan, Robert Swindells and Robert Westall)
Hot Rock Mountain (2004)
A Fistful of Pearls (2008)
Pea Boy (2009)
The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (2012)
The Lure of the Honey Bird (2013)
Two Crafty Jackals (2014)
A Wisp of Wisdom (2016) (with Abi Elphinstone, Adèle Geras, Sarah Lean, Gill Lewis, Geraldine McCaughrean, Tom Moorhouse, Beverley Naidoo, Ifeoma Onyefulu and Piers Torday)
Picture Books
Anna and the Fighter (1977)
House On the Hill (1978)
The Garden (1979)
Big Green Star (1982)
Blanket House (1982)
The Doctor's Bag (1982)
Jumper (1982)
The Miracle Child (1985)
Cubby Bears Go Camping (1986)
The Cubby Bears Go On the River (1986)
Cubby Bears Go Shopping (1986)
Cubby Bears' Birthday Party (1986)
The Dark Forest (1986)
Long House in Danger (1986)
You and Me (1986)
Clara (1986)
Heavy and Light (1987)
Hot and Cold (1987)
Light and Dark (1987)
Wet and Dry (1987)
The Inside Outing (1987)
Prayers for Children (1987)
The Road to Bethlehem (1987)
Busy Day (1987)
Time for Fun (1987)
Work and Play (1987)
Sid and Sadie (1988)
Hymns for Children (1988)
The Chunky Bears' Busy Day (1988)
The Chunky Bears Go Camping (1989)
The Chunky Bears Go on the River (1989)
The Chunky Bears' Birthday Party (1989)
The Chunky Bears Go Shopping (1989)
Graces for Children (1989)
Sugar and Candy (1989)
The Day Patch Stood Guard (1990)
The Day Sidney Was Lost (1990)
The Day the Ducks Went Skating (1990)
The Day Veronica Was Nosy (1990)
Fireman Sam and the Missing Key (1990)
Dead Man's River (1990)
Simon and the Spy (1990)
The Day Sidney Ran Off (1991)
Big Drip (1991)
Desert Island Ducks (1991)
Highland Fling (1991)
Snail's Tale (1991)
Stinker Muggles and the Dazzle Bug (1995)
Anita's Big Day (1996)
A Funny Sort of Dog (1997)
Ruff (1997)
Gabriel's Feather (1998)
A Book of Promises (1999)
King of the Supermarket (1999)
The Great Big Enormous Turnip (2000)
The Little Red Hen (2000)
The Christmas Gift (2002)
Beautiful Bananas (2004)
Jungle School (2006)
Grobblechops (2019)
Novellas
The Earthquake (2018)
Anthologies edited
Best Stories for Seven Year Olds (1996)
When the World Began (2000)
The Ogress and the Snake (2009)
Awards
Blue Peter Book Award Book of the Year nominee (2004) : The Garbage King
Costa Children's Book Award Best Novel nominee (2007) : Crusade
Carnegie Medal Best Book nominee (2008) : Crusade
Carnegie Medal Best Book nominee (2015) : The Fastest Boy in the World
Elizabeth Laird
Born in New Zealand and raised in South London, as Elizabeth Laird grew up she developed a taste for travel and adventure. She taught in a Malaysian school when she was only eighteen, and after university in Bristol she became a teacher in Ethiopia; and from there, many more diverse and beautiful areas of the world. Blogger Laird and her husband are now based in London and Edinburgh, and she is known for her much-admired and extensive bibliography of children’s books – a number of which have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal – inspired by her life’s great adventures, which can be discovered further on her website. Her most recent book, The Witching Hour, was published in 2009 and features a girl called Maggie who plunges into a dark life on the run after her granny is falsely accused of being a witch. For further information on her life as a writer, we recommend her interview with the Bookbag.
Elizabeth Laird is a high profile writer of books for children and young adults. She has been shortlisted five times for the Carnegie Medal. She has written over 20 books, and much of her writing is inspired by her travels and experiences of living in many different countries.
Writes: Struggling and Reluctant Readers for 9+, Colour Graffix
Author of : The Listener
Elizabeth Laird was born in New Zealand and always had a burning ambition to travel. She has spent much time abroad in places such as Malaysia, Lebanon, Austria and Ethiopia but now lives with her husband, who is also an author, on the edge of Richmond Park.
Elizabeth says that she feels immensely privileged to be able to earn her living as a writer. She cherishes the freedom of working on her own thing in her own time. She also loves the unexpectedness of writing. She never knows where inspiration will strike next or where it will lead her.
She has written many stories for children, and had a great many of nominations for awards, including being shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal three times. She has also won the Children's Book Award and the Smarties Young Judges Award.
Elizabeth Laird (author)
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For the Canadian physicist, see Elizabeth Laird (physicist).
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Elizabeth Laird (born 1943) is a British writer of children's fiction and travel. She is also known for the large body of folktales which she collected from the regions of Ethiopia. Her books have been translated into at least fifteen languages.[1]
Contents
1
Biography
2
Selected works
2.1
Young adult
2.2
Picture books
2.3
Short stories
3
Awards and nominations
4
References
5
External links
Biography[edit]
Laird was born in New Zealand in 1943. She was the fourth child of her Scottish father and New Zealand mother. The family settled in Purley, near London in 1945. A fifth child was born in 1947. He suffered severe disabilities and died in 1949. Laird's first children's novel, Red Sky in the Morning (Heinemann, 1988), was inspired in some measure by his life.[1]
At the age of 18, Laird travelled to Malaysia, and worked for a year as a teaching assistant in Kolej Tunku Kurshiah, Seremban. She was fortunate to recover from the bite of a poisonous snake in the South China Sea.
After finishing her degree at Bristol University and qualifying as a teacher from the Institute of Education in London, Laird took up a post at the Prince Bede Mariam Laboratory School, which was attached to the University of Addis Ababa. She spent two years in Ethiopia, travelling widely, often on foot and on horseback, and developed an abiding interest in the country.
After finishing a master's degree in Applied Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, Laird worked for five years in Southall at the Pathway Further Education Centre, setting up language teaching programmes in factories and hospitals for newly arrived immigrants from the Indian subcontinent.
She met her husband David McDowall on an aeroplane in India, while travelling to Bhopal to teach in a summer school for Indian university teachers. They married in 1975.
David McDowall was working at the time with the British Council in Baghdad, where they began their married life, and where Laird joined the Iraq Symphony Orchestra as a violinist. A visit to the Kurdish region in the north of Iraq would later be the inspiration for Laird's second novel, Kiss the Dust (Heinemann, 1990). Their first son, Angus, was born in 1977.
David McDowall left the British Council for a post in Beirut, Lebanon, with UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) in 1977. The civil war intensified during their stay. It was a dangerous time to be living in Beirut, and the Agency was evacuated to Vienna in 1978. The time in Beirut inspired Laird's short novel, Oranges in No Man's Land (Macmillan, 2006), and her Crusade (Macmillan, 2070). Her second son, William, was born in Vienna in 1979.
Laird and McDowall left UNRWA in 1979 and the family settled in Richmond, near London to embark on a career as freelance writers. After a short stint of working on materials for English language teaching, Laird began to write for children. Her work includes fiction for younger readers and young adults, picture books, and retellings of world stories, as well as readers in simplified English.
In 1996, Laird returned to Ethiopia, and conceived the idea of collecting folk stories to write English-language readers for Ethiopian schoolchildren so that they could increase their fluency in reading English while enjoying their own cultural heritage. She set up a project with the British Council and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, and over the following four years undertook journeys to every region of Ethiopia, during the course of which she collected over 300 stories. These have been published in the website www.ethiopianfolktales.com. Another website, www.ethiopianenglishreaders.com, contains eighty-eight of the stories, retold in simplified English, with additional teaching materials. Laird's account of the travels, the storytellers and the stories they told was published by Polygon Books in 2013 under the title The Lure of the Honey Bird.
During these years, Laird visited East Africa many times to research wildlife conservation issues. Assisted by the Kenya Wildlife Service, she wrote the ten novels of the Wild Things series published by Macmillan between 1999 and 2000.
Laird visited Palestine in 2001 to assist in seminars for writers. She met the Palestinian writer Sonia Nimr, and they collaborated on the novel A Little Piece of Ground (Macmillan, 2003).
During her time in Addis Ababa in the 1960s, and later during a visit to Ethiopia in 2003, Laird befriended various street children. Her novel, The Garbage King (Macmillan, 2004)was inspired by these encounters.
In 2008 Laird visited Pakistan to meet boys who had returned from gruelling experiences as camel jockeys in the Gulf countries. The novel Lost Riders (Macmillan, 2008) was the result of her experiences in Pakistan and Dubai.
An abiding interest in folk stories has resulted in retellings of stories from the Middle East and Africa. The Miracle Child (Collins, 1985) and The Road to Bethlehem (Collins, 1987) were both based on traditional Ethiopian stories and illustrated by manuscript paintings from the British Museum. When the World Began Stories from Ethiopia was published by Oxford University Press in 2000 and illustrated by Emma Harding, Griselda Holderness and Lydia Monks. A Fistful of Pearls, and other stories from Iraq (2008), and The Ogress and the Snake, stories from Somalia (2009) were both illustrated by Shelley Fowles and were published by Frances Lincoln. Pea Boy, and other stories from Iran (2009) and a retelling of Firdawsi's Shahnameh (2012) were both illustrated by Shirin Adil, and were also published by Frances Lincoln. Two Crafty Jackals, a retelling of the Kalilah and Dimnah tales from the Panchatantra, with illustrations attributed to the sixteenth century artist Sadiqi Beg, was published by the Aga Khan Museum in 2014.
Laird has written one historical novel for adults (Arcadia Macmillan, 1990) and four historical novels for children (Secrets of the Fearless Macmillan, 2005), Crusade (Macmillan, 2007) The Witching Hour (Macmillan, 2009, published as The Betrayal of Maggie Blair in the US in 2011) and The Prince Who Walked with Lions (Macmillan, 2012). She has been a judge of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction since its inception in 2010.
Laird has won many awards including the Children's Book Award, and has been shortlisted five times for the Carnegie Medal for British children's literature.
Since 2000, Laird and McDowall have divided their time between London and Edinburgh.
Selected works[edit]
Young adult[edit]
Red Sky in the Morning aka Loving Ben (1988)
Kiss the Dust (1991)
Hiding Out (1993)
Jay (1997)
Jake's Tower (2001)
The Garbage King (2003)
A Little Piece of Ground (2003)
Paradise End (2004)
Secrets of the Fearless (2005)
Oranges in No Man's Land (2006)
Crusade (2007)
Lost Riders (2008)
The Witching Hour (2009)
The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (2011)
The Prince who Walked with Lions (2012), about Prince Alemayehu
Picture books[edit]
Rosy's Garden (1979)
A Book of Promises (1999)
Beautiful Bananas (2004)
Short stories[edit]
Me and My Electric (1998)
Hot Rock Mountain (2004)
The Fastest Boy In The World (2014)
Awards and nominations[edit]
Red Sky in the Morning – Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for the Children's Book Award.
Hiding Out – Winner of the Smarties Young Judges Award.
Jake's Tower – Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Book Award.
The Garbage King – Winner of the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book of the Year award and the Stockport Book award. It has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Blue Peter Award, the Salford Children's Book Award, the Calderdale Children's Book Award, the Lincolnshire Young People's Book Award, the Stockton Children's Book of the Year, the West Sussex Children's Book Award, the Portsmouth Book Award and the Sheffield Children's Book Award.
A Little Piece of Ground – Winner of the Hampshire Book Award and has been shortlisted for the Southern Schools Book Award.
Elizabeth Laird
ChildrenNon-FictionPoetry
Born:
New Zealand
Publishers:
Oxford University PressPalgrave Macmillan
Agents:
The Agency (London) Ltd
Biography
Elizabeth Laird was born in New Zealand of Scottish parents, but grew up in London.
Before studying French and German at university, she taught at a girls’ school in Malaysia. During her twenties she lived and worked in Ethiopia, teaching and travelling, and was a disc jockey on a late night music show, broadcasting to Africa and India.
She met her husband, David McDowall, on a plane in India. They married in 1975, and lived first in Baghdad, where David was working for the British Council. Later, David's work with the UN took them to Beirut (during the civil war). They were eventually evacuated to Vienna, where their second son was born. They now live in London.
Elizabeth Laird has written many readers and background books on Britain in simplified English, as well as picture books for younger readers. During the 1990s she travelled round Ethiopia collecting folk stories from traditional storytellers, and the British Council produced them in a series of readers for Ethiopian schools. A selection for a wider audience was published as When The World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia (2000).
She is best known, however, for her fiction for children and young adults. Novels include Red Sky in the Morning (1988), about a disabled child; Kiss the Dust (1991), about Kurdish asylum seekers in Iraq; Secret Friends (1996); Jay (1997), which has a drug theme; and Jake’s Tower (2001), in which a boy has to cope with a violent stepfather. The Garbage King (2003) is set in Addis Ababa, and is about Ethiopian street children. A Little Piece of Ground (2003) is set in Ramallah, Palestine, from the point of view of boys caught up in the intifada. Secrets of the Fearless (2006) is a historical adventure story set against the backdrop of Nelson's navy. Crusade (2007), was shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Children's Book Award.
Her most recent books include The Witching Hour (2009); The Ogress and the Snake: And Other Stories from Somalia (2009); The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (2011); The Prince who Walked with Lions (2012); The Fastest Boy in the World (2014), shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal in 2015; and Song of the Dolphin Boy (2018).
Elizabeth Laird's books have been translated into 15 languages.
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Critical perspective Bibliography Awards Author statement
Critical perspective
Elizabeth Laird has spent her adult life experiencing many different cultures: she has spent periods of time living and working in Malaysia, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.
These experiences have deeply influenced her writing, and many of her books for children and young adults are set in the countries she has visited, while others depict immigrant families adapting to life in Britain. She also writes about child abuse, illness and death, war, terrorism and homelessness, often basing her stories on topical current events.
However, as she says herself (see ‘Author Statement’, below), her main focus is to explore emotional and psychological issues, and thus the settings and topical issues are secondary to this. As such, each of her stories contains vivid and well-rounded characters and universal themes with which child readers growing up in more ‘ordinary’ circumstances can easily identify.
Some of Laird’s early works are re-tellings of traditional Ethiopian stories. The Miracle Child: A Story From Ethiopia (1985) tells the life story of Takla Haymanot, a 13th-century Ethiopian saint, while The Road to Bethlehem: An Ethiopian Nativity re-tells the Ethiopian version of the story of Jesus’ birth. One of Laird’s more recent works, When the World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia (2000), is a collection of traditional folk stories told directly to Laird by the people she visited in remote parts of Ethiopia. Her re-telling of the stories echoes the simple, straightforward style of Ethiopian folklore, in which excessive ‘wordiness’ and elaboration is avoided.
Laird’s first novel for older children and teens was Red Sky in the Morning (1988), published in the US as Loving Ben. It is the first-person narrative of 12-year-old Anna, who helps to care for her hydrocephalic baby brother, Ben, who eventually dies. It was inspired by Laird’s own personal experiences - her younger brother was born when she was three, and died four years later. Red Sky in the Morning, like most of Laird’s subsequent novels, explores moral ambiguities and complexities, and does not present anything in black and white. In particular, Anna and her family must deal with their conflicting emotions - when Ben dies, they experience both intense grief and feelings of relief. Red Sky in the Morning was immediately critically acclaimed, and continues to appear on many school syllabuses.
Kiss the Dust (1991) is also the story of a 12-year-old girl who, like Anna, is experiencing her own adolescent dilemmas within the context of more traumatic events. Tara Khan is a Kurdish girl, growing up in Iraq, who is forced to flee with her family, first to Iran and eventually to Britain. Laird spent a year researching this novel, which has been compared with Ann Holm’s I Am David, and it has been praised for its vivid and heart-rending depiction of the experiences of Kurdish refugees, bringing to life the acute suffering that exists behind political events. Secret Friends (1996) also addresses immigration, featuring a young girl and her family who have recently arrived in the UK. As always, Laird combines specific events and settings with universal themes: within the context of an immigration story, Secret Friends explores bullying, peer pressure and the need to belong.
Another extremely topical novel is A Little Piece of Ground (2003), which has proved to be Laird’s most controversial work. Written with the help of Palestinian author Sonia Nimr, it is a tale of Palestinian children suffering under Israeli occupation: the ‘little piece of ground’ refers implicitly to the Palestinian’s hope for their own territory, and explicitly to 12-year-old Karim’s search for a place to play football with his friends, after Israeli tanks have destroyed the local playing fields. The bookseller Kidsbooks launched an unsuccessful campaign to persuade the publisher, Macmillan, not to go ahead with publication, and other Jewish groups have voiced strong opinion. However, others have praised Laird’s courage in tackling such a delicate subject and depicting the struggles of ordinary families whose lives have been devastated by the conflict. One of Laird’s greatest supporters has been Michael Morpurgo, who was the Children’s Laureate at the time the novel was published. Morpurgo wrote the introduction to A Little Piece of Ground:
'No one but Elizabeth Laird could have written this book. She has lived in the Middle East. She knows it, feels it, loves it, grieves for it and hopes for it. Read A Little Piece of Ground and we know what it is to feel oppressed, to feel fear every day […] We are apt to see events in Palestine and Israel as television drama; violent and repetitive. But in this book we are taken in Ramallah, we live there, no longer mere observers, but involved as we should be […] A fine book, and a daring book.'
The Garbage King, also published in 2003, is equally topical but less controversial, depicting the painful struggles of Ethiopian street children. Laird interviewed homeless Ethiopian children as part of her research, and the novel includes an ‘Afterword’ discussing these real children and their experiences, along with a message from one of them, imploring others not to run away. The novel’s two central characters have both come from very different backgrounds: Mamo is a poverty-stricken orphan whose basic physical survival is under threat, while Dani is from an affluent background, but struggles with an oppressive father who derides his son for his weak academic performance and lack of ‘manliness’. While Mamo escapes from slavery, Dani runs away from his father, and the two boys meet and form a friendship. From there, they join a gang of street children led by Million, a tough, streetwise boy who teaches them to beg and find food. Mamo and Dani, like most of Laird’s protagonists, are survivors who mature through their difficult experiences and discover their own strength, both physically and emotionally. The novel has received some criticism for its neat happy ending: Mamo eventually finds his sister, while Dani is reunited with his parents. Nonetheless The Garbage King presents a rich and vivid depiction of Ethiopian life, along with a multi-layered perspective which shows the sufferings of both the privileged and the underprivileged, and avoids a simplistic one-sided view.
Laird often explores these unlikely friendships in which children and teenagers from vastly different backgrounds come to understand each other, and often in the process come to understand themselves as well. Paradise End (2004), like The Garbage King, features two children from vastly different social backgrounds as it follows the emotional development of working-class Carly. As she begins to realise that her new wealthy friend is emotionally deprived and terribly damaged, she simultaneously learns to appreciate the emotional richness of her own family. Laird skilfully avoids sentimentality, for Carly’s family are far from perfect - Carly simply begins to understand that the trials of sibling rivalry and frustrated desires are just everyday troubles within the context of a loving family.
In Crusade (2007), Laird enacts a similar theme with two boys from different religious faiths and vastly different cultural backgrounds. It is a historical novel, set during the third crusade in the 12th century, which reflects today’s conflicts between Islam and the Western world and depicts Muslim culture sympathetically. Salim is a Muslim boy apprenticed to Saladin’s personal doctor, while Adam is an English serf who has joined up to serve his local knight and consequently finds himself travelling to the Middle East. Both boys hold strong prejudices about each other’s culture, but they gradually learn to reconsider their views. Like most of Laird’s novels, Crusade is pervaded by moral perplexity. Just as The Garbage King and Paradise End demonstrate the way in which different social classes each have their sufferings to contend with, Crusade shows clearly that it is never a clear-cut case of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ -- there is always both good and bad on all sides.
Elizabeth O’Reilly, 2008
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Bibliography
2018
Song of the Dolphin Boy
2017
Welcome to Nowhere
2014
The Fastest Boy in the World
2012
The Prince who Walked with Lions
2011
The Betrayal of Maggie Blair
2010
Cities
2009
The Witching Hour
2009
The Ogress and the Snake: And Other Stories from Somalia
2008
Lost Riders
2008
A Fistful of Pearls and Other Tales from Iraq
2007
Crusade
2006
Oranges in No Man's Land
2005
Secrets of the Fearless
2004
Paradise End
2004
Hot Rock Mountain
2003
The Garbage King
2003
A Little Piece of Ground
2003
Beautiful Bananas
2003
The Ice Cream Swipe
2002
The Christmas Gift
2001
Jake's Tower
2000
When the World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia
2000
The Three Little Pigs: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
2000
Chimp Escape
2000
Parrot Rescue
2000
The Little Red Hen: The Tortoise and the Hare
2000
Lion Pride
2000
The Great Big Enormous Turnip
2000
Jack and the Beanstalk: The Princess and the Pea
1999
Eddy and the Movie Star
1999
Elephant Thunder
1999
Zebra Storm
1999
The Storm
1999
Rhino Fire
1999
Red Wolf
1999
Baboon Rock
1999
Leopard Trail
1999
A Book of Promises
1999
Karen and the Artist
1999
King of the Supermarket
1998
Gabriel's Feather
1998
Me and My Electric
1997
Forbidden Ground
1997
Rosy's Winter
1997
A Funny Sort of Dog
1997
The Listener
1997
Jay
1996
Secret Friends
Awards
2008
Carnegie Medal (shortlist)
2007
Costa Children's Book Award (shortlist)
2004
Blue Peter Book Award: The Book I Couldn't Put Down
2004
Hampshire Book Award
2004
Scottish Arts Council Children's Book of the Year Award
2004
Stockport Children's Book Award
2003
Carnegie Medal (shortlist)
2001
Carnegie Medal (shortlist)
1998
Lancashire County Library Children's Book of the Year Award
1996
Carnegie Medal (shortlist)
1994
Nestlé Smarties Young Judges Award
1992
Dutch Royal Geographical Society Glass Globe Award
1992
Red House Children's Book Award
1992
Sheffield Children's Book Award
1989
Carnegie Medal (Highly Commended)
Author statement
Like most writers, I write because I can't help it. Ideas for stories and novels form in my mind and demand to be written down. Since I was a child, I have written endless diaries and letters, and my study is crammed with half-finished manuscripts that will never see the light. A glance through the subject matter of my novels might lead one to suppose that I deliberately choose to focus on issues such as war, street children, disability or child abuse. This is not really the case. My starting point is themes such as courage, endurance, forgiveness and love. The 'issues' are the settings in which these ideas can be explored. It is true, however, that the years I have spent abroad have inspired the books I set in Kurdistan, Ethiopia and Palestine.
I always wanted to be a traveller. A railway line ran past the garden of my childhood home, and I used to lie awake listening to the trains chug by, wishing I was on one of them.
I was born in New Zealand in 1943. My father was a ship's surgeon from Scotland, and my mother's forbears were all Scots too. They met after a great earthquake in 1933. I was the fourth of their five children. We all returned to live in Britain in 1945, and I grew up in South London.
My first big adventure was teaching in a school in Malaysia when I was eighteen. I went trekking in the jungle, and decided that an adventurous life was for me, even though I went down with typhoid and was bitten by a sea snake.
After I'd been to University (in Bristol) I got a job in Ethiopia, teaching English in Addis Ababa, the capital. I had too many adventures to recount. In the vacations, a friend and I would go off into the remote areas, hiring mules when there were no roads to travel on. I loved Ethiopia, its beautiful countryside and brave, stoical people.
After a spell at Edinburgh university, I worked for a summer in India. I had to travel by air from Mumbhai to Bhopal, and was horribly airsick. The man in the next seat was extremely kind to me. His name was David McDowall. I liked him at once, and we got married soon after. It was the best thing I ever did in my life.
David had been working in India, but was transferred to Iraq, so that's where we began our married life. We visited the Marshes, and the Kurdish region. Some time later, after our first son, Angus, was born, we moved to Beirut, in Lebanon. A civil war was raging at the time. The fighting became so bad that eventually we were evacuated to Vienna, where William, our second son, was born.
We finally decided to take a great risk and see if we could earn our living as writers. We had luckily bought a house in London while we had been working abroad. We came home, settled down, and wrote. Being rather hard up, we took in bed and breakfast, and did various kinds of jobs to make ends meet, but our books began to sell well, and we have never looked back.
I went back to Ethiopia thirty years after I'd left, in 1996, and fell under that lovely country's spell again. I set up a project with the British Council collecting folk stories from traditional story tellers, and made many journeys to the farthest corners of Ethiopia. I travelled extensively in Kenya too, in order to write the Wild Things series. Other projects have taken me to Palestine, Khazakhstan, Iran and Russia. These days, I tell myself that I'm too old for big adventures. I should spend my time sitting in my London study, snoozing by the fire, or pottering around in Edinburgh, where we spend part of our time. But if an invitation should flutter through the door, or an idea, or a mad, mad inspiration, I know I'll be off again, just as soon as I've packed my bag.
Where do you get your ideas from?
If you want to know the answer, ask yourself these questions:
Where do your dreams come from?
Where do your memories go?
What are your deepest hopes and fears?
What happens to all your experiences?
If I could answer these questions, I'd be able to tell you where my ideas came from.
How many books have you written?
Over 150, but some of them are for small children, and are very short.
Which is the favourite book that you've written?
If you've got brothers or sisters, try asking your mother or father which is their favourite child. They'll probably tell you that they love you all as much as each other. That's how I feel about my books. They're all different, and I love them all in different ways.
How long does it take to write a book?
Every book is different. Crusade took me a year to write, because I had to do so much research. Red Sky in the Morning took me six weeks. I was inspired from start to finish, and couldn't stop writing. Most novels take between three and six months these days.
What was your first book called?
It was called The Big Green Star and it was a little picture book for very small children. It's been out of print for years.
How long have you been writing?
I've been a full time writer for more than nearly forty years.
Did you want to be a writer when you were a child?
No. I wanted to learn lots of foreign languages, and be an interpreter at international conferences. I saw myself whispering translations in the ears of famous presidents and leaders, with the fate of the world in my hands. Fat chance.
Do you design your own covers?
No. Many different talented artists and designers work on the covers. It's a very specialist job!
How do you choose the titles of your books?
This is the part I find hardest. Sometimes it takes me weeks and weeks to think of a good title.
Can you tell me any good books that I might like to read?
This is a hard question, because there are so many fantastic books out there. But here are a few that I've particularly enjoyed:
Scarlet Ibis by Gillian Lewis
Journey to Jo’burg by Beverley Naidoo
Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian
Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin
The Kin by Peter Dickinson
Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson
Paper Faces by Rachel Anderson
Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Naked Without a Hat by Jean Willis
Tuck Everlasting Natalie Babbitt
I Coriander by Sally Gardiner
The Skylarks War Hilary McKay
The worst, the best, the nicest and the nastiest
The worst things that ever happened to me:
Being bitten by a poisonous snake in the South China Sea (I nearly died)
Waiting for the fire brigade to arrive when our house went on fire
Being chased by a rhino in Kenya
The best things that ever happened to me:
Marrying my husband, David McDowall
Having my two sons, Angus and William
Going to Malaysia, Ethiopia, India, France, Norway, Palestine, Iran, Kenya, Pakistan, China, Russia…
The nastiest job I ever had
Washing the dirtiest linen in a hospital laundry
The nicest job I ever had
Playing the violin in the Iraq symphony orchestra
The things I hate most
Snakes, being cold, forgetting things all the time
The things I like most
Very, very black chocolate, Mozart, reading, getting up late
Favourite book
There's a new one every week
Elizabeth Laird was born in New Zealand in 1943 but she grew up in Britain. She has lived in many parts of the world, including Ethiopia, Malaysia, Iraq and Lebanon. She now lives in Britain with her husband, David McDowall, who is also a writer.
Some of Elizabeth's novels are set in Britain, and deal with the problems and concerns of young people growing up today. Others are set in Kurdistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon and Pakistan. She has also written two historical novels, shorter novels for younger children, picture books and retellings of folk tales.
Elizabeth has won the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book of the Year Award and has been shortlisted for the Costa Award, the Blue Peter Award, the Royal Mail Award and five times for the Carnegie Medal. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
About writer's work
I enjoy writing on a breadth of subjects. Working abroad in Africa and the Middle East has been the spur to some of my work. Increasingly, I am turning to historical themes, particularly where events in the past have the power to illuminate what is happening in the world today.
Current events and projects
I now make school visits very rarely, but am willing to consider undertaking readings and talks both to children and teachers/librarians throughout Scotland.
Local authority where they are based
Edinburgh
Local authorities where they can work
Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Dumfries and Galloway, Dundee, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Fife, Glasgow, Highland, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Moray, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Orkney, Perth and Kinross, Renfrewshire, Scottish Borders, Shetland, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, Stirling, West Dunbartonshire, West Lothian
Age groups
9-12, Teens, Adults
LL funded
Yes
BRAW network
Yes
Author type
Writer
Language
English
The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Elizabeth Laird
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The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Elizabeth Laird
Summary: Bookbag loved Elizabeth Laird's Witching Hour - just as it's loved all her previous books. We were thrilled with the opportunity to ask her some questions about it, and get to know her a bit better.
Date: 2 May 2009
Interviewer: Jill Murphy
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Privacy
Bookbag loved Elizabeth Laird's Witching Hour - just as it's loved all her previous books. We were thrilled with the opportunity to ask her some questions about it, and get to know her a bit better.
Bookbag: When you close your eyes and imagine your readers, who do you see?
Elizabeth Laird: I'm afraid I never close my eyes and think of my readers. In fact, I never think of the poor things at all. I only think about the story and the characters. To be honest, I'm sure that if I imagined anyone actually reading the book, I'd die of fright and not be able to write another word.
BB: We loved The Witching Hour and in particular, we loved Maggie. Is she based on anyone you know?
EL: It's a funny thing about characters in fiction. They're never based on real people. They just kind of grow in your head. Maggie began to step out of the shadows of my mind as soon as she found the whale, and after that she went her own sweet way. I would like to have met her in the flesh, I must say.
BB: Your books are always issue-based, but they also feature deeply engaging characters. Which springs from the other in your mind?
EL: I don't think my books are really issues based. I just write about stuff that interests me. I suppose if you're looking for a starting point for my novels, you have to hunt for what I call the Big Words - words like faith (The Witching Hour), forgiveness (Jake's Tower), loyalty (Crusade), endurance (A Little Piece of Ground]]), the power of love (Red Sky in the Morning). Does that make sense?
BB: Yes, absolutely. Whenever we review your books, we find ourselves referring to your trademark humanity. How important is empathy in issue-based books?
EL: Empathy is the beginning and end of all story telling, never mind any old issues that happen to pop up along the way. If readers don't live with and feel for the characters in a story, it ain't a good story. It's wanting to know what happens to them, and how they're going to cope with it, that keeps you turning the pages. I think that learning about empathy is one of the most brilliant things about fiction. You have the chance to step into the shoes of another person and walk around in them for a while. In the process, you learn a huge amount about human beings and the way they tick. Brilliant.
BB: What makes you write?
EL: What makes me write? I don't know! I just don't seem to be able to stop! And then of course there's the brutal truth that I need to keep the occasional penny rolling in...
BB: Which authors were your favourites when you were a child? What are you reading now?
EL: I loved reading historical fiction when I was a child, especially books by Geoffrey Trease. Most of them are out of print now, sadly. At the moment I've just finished reading rather a long book (which I didn't like so much so I'm not going to recommend it) and I'm just starting on a history book about Ethiopia. It looks great.
BB: What do you do when you are not writing?
EL: When I'm not writing, I love to work in my garden. You should see my vegetables! This year I've got potatoes doing fine, and French beans, broccoli, spinach, rocket, butternut squash - you name it.
BB: If you could have one wish, what would it be?
EL: If I had one wish? What kind of question is that? I've got so many wishes I can't possibly think of one! Oh, all right then. If I must choose one, it's this. Both my sons are getting married this year, and I'm really looking forward to a grandchild.
BB: What's next for Elizabeth Laird?
EL: I'm starting on a difficult project this time. It's going to be a book about my travels and adventures in Ethiopia. I've travelled around the whole of that huge and fascinating country, collecting stories from many different storytellers. Watch this space...
BB: Thanks a lot, Elizabeth. Congratulations and good luck to your sons and daughters-in-law!
AN INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH LAIRD
Elizabeth Laird the award-winning author of The Garbage King, The Fastest Boy in the World, A Little Piece of Ground, Kiss the Dust, Crusade, and Oranges in No Man’s Land, among others. She has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal six times. Her latest book, Welcome to Nowhere, follows twelve-year-old Omar and his family as they move through Syria from the ancient city of Bosra to Daraa, then, fleeing violence, to a small farming village – and finally across the border, to a Jordanian refugee camp. Imogen Russell Williams interviews her about the book for Books for Keeps.
You’ve written books set all over the world; in Ethiopia, India, Kurdistan, Beirut, and many other places. What drew you this time to write about Syria?
I have a neighbour, who was following the boats arriving in Greece, backwards and forwards to the beaches. I said to him one day, ‘I don’t know what to do. It’s just terrible, ghastly. What should we do…?’ And he said ‘Don’t send money; write.’ So I began to think, ‘How can I write about this?’
[Shortly afterwards], we went on holiday to Germany, and we went to Munich Station. It was the Oktoberfest, and everybody was wearing dirndl skirts and lederhosen and a bit drunk; but in amongst this huge crowd there were small groups of people; I guessed they were Syrian, because they were wearing white hijabs, which is characteristic of some parts of Syria. And there was a big room, obviously an old station café or something that had been emptied, and there were volunteers helping people, and notices written by children, saying ‘Welcome to Germany’. My heart was beating, and I thought, I must write about this. So I went home and tried to write about it - and I couldn’t, because I wasn’t close enough…
So I asked a family friend], who was working in Amman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, running support programmes for teachers in the schools there - ‘Can you help me?’, and she said ‘Why don’t you come and do some courses for the secondary school teachers, helping to teach writing, and writing themselves?’
Then [another family friend, also working with refugees in Amman] took me to meet a family she had been helping - she asked me to take 40 hot water bottles with me, which I did, and I can tell you, hot water bottles are much heavier than you might imagine! There were three children, a teenage girl and two boys, and one of them had cerebral palsy. I spent several hours with them in their home, and then I thought: that’s it.
I wanted to ask you about the character of Musa, the narrator’s older brother, who has cerebral palsy. Was that where he came from?
Well, the characters in my book are not those children at all, they’re quite different. But Musa - I had a brother when I was little, who was very severely disabled - he actually died when he was four, and cerebral palsy was one of his problems. So I feel I can write about it – I’ve been there, in a way. It wasn’t a deliberate ‘I must put in a disabled person’ sort of thing; it was serendipity. Also, I’m fed up with the way in which people with cerebral palsy are not considered to be intelligent.
And in your book, Musa turns out to be a brilliant political activist, who drives a great deal of the story. What about Omar himself – your tremendously likeable, unsaintly, entrepreneurial main character? Where did he come from?
I spent a day up on the northern border of Jordan, in the Azraq Governate, and the guy driving us was a gorgeous chap called Maher, from Palmyra. As a child, he had sold postcards after school in the ruins at Palmyra, and he’d saved up enough money with his cousin, and bought a camel. I don’t think he was very academic, or had the chance to go far with education, but he started a fine business, taking troops of tourists into the desert and camping with them at night. He got a house; he got a car; he got things absolutely sorted out. And then the war happened.
Then I went down to Petra, and the taxi driver, Ahmed, who was a friend of a friend, was explaining to me his postcard-selling techniques, and how he made up these rhymes. And there was something about Maher and Ahmed’s entrepreneurial spirit that just made me go ‘That’s great!’ In the Middle East, if you say to most children, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’, they say ‘I want to be a doctor’ - or a pilot, or an engineer. But these kids didn’t want to be anything like that – they just wanted to be businessmen, and make lots of money. I thought that was great!
Yes! But although Omar is not remotely interested in formal education, his older sister Eman is – and she’s very keen to finish her education before being married off. Was she based on anyone in particular?
Eman came from the teachers in Zaatari and Azraq [refugee camps]. Early marriage is a terrible problem [in the camps]; fathers feel they can’t protect their daughters, so they must marry them off quickly. Children are married off, and by the time they’re eighteen they’ve got two kids, and that’s it. The teachers in Azraq didn’t tell me much about themselves, and I was working through a translator –but the whole thing about early marriage kept coming up, and also their passionate desire for education, and how proud they were, being teachers. All of the teachers in the camps are trained teachers from home - and some of them had had to really struggle to become teachers. So that was the seed of Eman.
Technology – access to information, the internet – seems key throughout the book. Was that hard to research?
Not really. One of the things you notice, if you go to any of the camps, is that after food, a mobile phone is the most important thing; sim cards, as people make their journeys through Europe, are absolutely crucial. It’s fascinating, actually - going back to the 1980s, the first major Middle East revolution to be fought by technology was the Iranian toppling of the Shah, when Ayatollah Khomeini disseminated his sermons on cassette tapes, and they went all over the world. Well, of course, all the so-called Arab Spring has been triggered by Twitter, Facebook and so on, and it’s hard for somebody of my age to understand how that works – I try to keep up, but I’m not brilliant at it. But the plot of Welcome to Nowhere faithfully follows the truth, in that what triggered the civil war was schoolboys painting slogans in Daraa, in March 2011. These boys painted ‘The Regime Must Fall’ on the wall, and [footage of] that sparked off the whole thing. That’s partly why I set it in Daraa.
Omar’s family have to keep moving throughout the book, from Bosra to Daraa to a small farming village – and, while they’re in the countryside, you touch on the black-masked ‘lunatic fanatics in the North’. What were the challenges of writing about ISIL?
Well, the main challenge was that they didn’t exist [in Syria] back in 2011– they’re an anachronism. But I did feel I had to a) hint about them, and b) absolutely divorce my key characters from them. Of course, there are hotheaded young people like everywhere else who are going to think ‘oh, this is cool’, and give it the time of day – like Jaber [Omar’s cousin.] He’s a teenager, he’s disappointed, he thinks his life is condemned to sowing tomatoes and moving rocks – and he hates it, he wants to get out and have a life. But he’s just a teenager, really; and I don’t see that he will go down that road at all, because he’s got a nice stable family and a lovely mum.
When the family cross the Jordanian border and enter the camp, Omar is aware of his identity changing, being stripped away – ‘Nobody saw us as real people who had lives. We were just refugees’. Was that something that you heard a lot?
Oh yes. One of the saddest things I heard was there was from a woman in my workshop; she said ‘I’m pregnant, and if I don’t get out of this camp, my baby’s going to have Refugee stamped on his passport, and that’s going to be a stigma for the rest of his life. Place of birth: Zaatari Refugee Camp.’ They all felt massively diminished by it. I try, now, not to use the word ‘refugee’ - it’s becoming a stigma. One should really use the words ‘person who’s lost their home’, or something – think of better words - I don’t know. But it lumps people all into one great thing, instead of being able to see them as individuals.
Was that why you wrote the book?
Yes. One of the things that worried me was the accusation of jumping on a bandwagon for career purposes – and it’s a fair point. I’m sensitive to that, but that’s not how I feel about it. I just feel that if we – writers – don’t write about the great stories of our time, then we’re not doing our job.
In the camp, amid the bleakness – mud, tents, little kids running riot – you guide the reader, via Omar, to this amazing, brightly-coloured impromptu trading place, the ‘Champs Élysées’. Is that real?
My God, it’s real! It’s absolutely amazing! And it is totally wonderful – there are loads of pictures online. There’s these great big satellite dishes, and it’s just an amazing hive – it just works as a focus for the whole place. You’ve got a bit of money in your pocket, or your vouchers – you can maybe swap them for some money, and then you can go shopping. And if your daughter gets married, you can rent a wedding dress for twenty quid!
There’s a point of transition right at the end of the book - Omar and his family have had their asylum applications accepted, and are about to leave the camp. What do you think the future looks like for them?
I think it’s very bleak. I think people will say it’s an unrealistically happy ending – but it’s not. I think it’s a very poor ending for the family. What the hell will they do in Britain? I anticipated the question from children who might say to me ‘What’s going to happen next? Are you going to write a sequel?’ and I’d say to them ‘No, you are. What happens to the family is up to you.’ That’s really the point of the ending – I wanted the reader to think ‘What are we going to do about it?’ It’s not a wonderful dream [for them to come to Britain]. They’re scared of the culture – it’s completely alien to them. They’re worried about being good Muslims here, and they’re worried, quite rightly, about racism and Islamophobia.
What would you suggest to readers who are moved by the book? What might they read next, and what might they do?
What you should read: some very good books are The Wall, by William Sutcliffe; Burn my Heart, by Beverley Naidoo; Asylum by Rachel Anderson – real life books about real people in other places – and those wonderful books by Gill Lewis; Azzi in Between by Sarah Garland; The Arrival by Shaun Tan.
What you could do…well, a woman called Catherine Ashcroft and her team have been working with small Jordanian NGOS, setting up desert schools [for Syrian refugee children]. These schools are now teaching 475 children, and the Syrian government has just agreed to give them formal accreditation, so they can take exams. If you would like to help, I’ve set up a link on my website with the Mandala Trust, with some fundraising ideas.
Welcome to Nowhere is published by Macmillan Children's Books, £6.99 pbk and £9.99 hbk
Imogen Russell Williams is a journalist and editorial consultant specialising in children’s literature and YA.
Monday, 18 January 2016
The Right to Write by Elizabeth Laird
There's been a lot of chatter lately about "cultural appropriation". The term doesn't refer to the natural take-up of one group's culture by others who live in proximity, when such markers as cuisine, art, music, language, costume and so on begin to be exchanged. It describes what happens when members of a powerful group exploit the culture of less dominant groups, without any true understanding of their history, traditions or even religious symbols. In the USA in the 1950s, for example, record companies hired white musicians to copy the rhythm and style of black musicians, who were never credited with (or paid for) the music they had pioneered.
A small British "Red Indian" innocently practising cultural appropriation
Thinking about this matter always makes me a little anxious. I have written about cultures other than my own for years. I've written in the voice of a Kurdish refugee girl living in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a street boy in Addis Ababa, a young Pakistani camel jockey, a Palestinian boy living under occupation and a child enduring the civil war in Beirut. I have to say that I've always researched my characters carefully, drawing on my own memories of living in those countries, and interviewing people whose experiences match my characters'. Some day, though, I know there'll be a tap on my shoulder, and a voice will say, "Who do you think you are? What you've written is patronising/demeaning/exploitative/
insulting." (Insert your own choice of adjective).
If that happens I shall stand my ground. Writers write the stories that enter their heads, the stories that demand to be told. Readers choose whether or not to read them. And everyone has the right to reply, to object or to correct.
When it comes to writing historical fiction, we're faced with a double dilemma. We must not only create characters that are true to the cultures in which we set them, we must also make sure that they inhabit the often vastly different mental and emotional world of the past.
My greatest challenge was during the writing of Crusade. My twelfth century characters included the dog boy of an English baron, a Saracen boy apprenticed to a Jewish doctor from Baghdad, the doctor himself, a Mameluk knight, and a whole cast of knights, squires, servants, kings and lords, both English and Saracen.
More recently, in The Prince Who Walked With Lions, I dared to speak in the voice of Alemayehu, the (real) Abyssinian prince whose father was defeated by the British and who became the ward of Queen Victoria. There were, fortunately, several accounts of his short life by people who had known and loved him. I could draw heavily on these.
My latest short novel (for younger readers) was an easier proposition. Its title is Dindy and the Elephant. The story is set in a tea garden in Kerala at the moment in 1947 when the Raj is coming to an end and the British are about the leave, The main character, Dindy is a British child who, with her family, is about to return to England. One day she daringly encourages her little brother to step outside the protective wall surrounding the garden of the bungalow in which she's always lived, and venture out to explore the tea plantation beyond. In the course of the next few hours, Dindy learns that the India she thought she knew is a different place altogether, and that her mother's racist and arrogant attitudes towards her servants and the plantation workers are mistaken.
It was not difficult to put myself in Dindy's shoes. My great-great-grandfather grew tea in Assam. He was a dashing and romantic figure to me once, though now that I know more about conditions for the tea pickers in the nineteenth century his gloss has rather faded. The deed of sale of his estate mentioned four elephants, a fact which had always fascinated me. To research the book, I went to stay in a bungalow in a tea garden in Kerala. With its chintzy rooms, deep verandas, rose gardens and views over hillsides clad in brilliant green tea bushes, it seemed unchanged since the days of the Raj. Dindy herself wasn't hard to bring to life. I can dimly remember the world in 1947 myself.
A tea garden in Kerala
So here's my conclusion. We writers have a duty to do our research with the greatest care when we create characters from cultural backgrounds not our own. We should not misrepresent, belittle, or repeat ignorant misconceptions which feed hostility or prejudice. However, we have the right to invent the characters we choose, to speak with their voices and walk in their shoes. After all, if that's not the case, we would be forced to write only about ourselves.
Celia Rees will be back next month
posted on 07 Apr 2017
An Interview With Elizabeth Laird
The Letterpress Project has asked authors and illustrators to think about what has inspired them as artists, what their favourite books are and how they relate to their audience - we've also asked them if they themselves are book collectors.
We are thrilled to present an exclusive interview with the writer of fiction for young adults, Elizabeth Laird. Originally born in New Zealand to Scottish parents she grew up in London after the Second World War before living and working in such diverse places as Malaysia, Ethiopia and Iraq. The British Council website says this about her writing:
She is best known, however, for her fiction for children and young adults. Novels include Red Sky in the Morning (1988), about a disabled child; Kiss the Dust (1991), about Kurdish asylum seekers in Iraq; Secret Friends (1996); Jay (1997), which has a drug theme; and Jake’s Tower (2001), in which a boy has to cope with a violent stepfather. The Garbage King (2003) is set in Addis Ababa, and is about Ethiopian street children. A Little Piece of Ground (2003) is set in Ramallah, Palestine, from the point of view of boys caught up in the intifada. Secrets of the Fearless (2006) is a historical adventure story set against the backdrop of Nelson's navy. Crusade (2007), was shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Children's Book Award.
Her most recent books are The Witching Hour (2009); The Ogress and the Snake: And Other Stories fromSomalia (2009); The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (2011) and The Prince who Walked with Lions (2012).
Elizabeth Laird's books have been translated into 15 languages.
Elizabeth's most recent novel, Welcome to Nowhere, has been reviewed on this site and you can read that by clicking on this link.
You can see more about Elizabeth's work on this link to her own website.
You can read what she had to tell us on the link below:
Elizabeth_Laird_einterview.pdf
Interview: http://www.letterpressproject.co.uk/media/file/Elizabeth_Laird_einterview.pdf
Laird, Elizabeth: Song of the Dolphin Boy
Clare Morpurgo
School Librarian. 66.3 (Autumn 2018): p172.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The School Library Association
http://www.sla.org.uk/school-librarian.php
Full Text:
Laird, Elizabeth
Song of the Dolphin Boy
Illustrated by Peter Bailey
Macmillan, 2018, pp226, 6.99 [pounds sterling]
978 1 5098 2823 4
The book begins with a poem which is the clue to a mystery. The author has created a very modern story which connects with the ancient legends of Scotland and the Scottish islands, Orkney and Shetland. These ancient tales often describe the fatal love between men and sea creatures, such as seals and dolphins, who have the ability to become beautiful women, known as Selkies.
The story is set in a small seaside town on the East Coast of Scotland. Finn, is shunned by everyone in the village. He is thought to be strange and it is generally believed that his father murdered his wife. Finn is a nervous child, lacking in self-confidence until one day he falls into the sea and finds he can swim effortlessly. He is guided out to sea by a dolphin and discovers he can understand the language of dolphins. He has a strong sense of affiliation. When he gets home he tells his father what has happened and his father is at first furious. Finally he admits that Finn's mother was a selkie and had returned to live in the sea when Finn was a baby, leaving his father distraught.
The book also has a moral message. The lives of all sea creatures are being threatened by the excessive amount of plastic being dumped in the sea. It is a real wake up call for a new young readership. The story moves swiftly and there is a satisfying denouement. Humour is never far behind and Liz Laird makes sure that her readers have often cause to smile. There is some beautiful writing, especially about the dolphin community and their ability to communicate with each other.
Clare Morpurgo
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Morpurgo, Clare. "Laird, Elizabeth: Song of the Dolphin Boy." School Librarian, Autumn 2018, p. 172. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A555410044/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=968963ed. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A555410044
Laird, Elizabeth: Welcome to Nowhere
Lizzie Ryder
School Librarian. 65.1 (Spring 2017): p41.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The School Library Association
http://www.sla.org.uk/school-librarian.php
Full Text:
Laird, Elizabeth
Welcome to Nowhere
Macmillan, 2017, pp352, 9.99 [pounds sterling]
978 1 5098 4049 6
In the winter of 2015, Elizabeth Laird travelled to Jordan to volunteer in two refugee camps where she was moved by the plight and the stories of the people she met--Welcome to Nowhere is the stunning result of her experiences there.
The book tells the story of twelve year old Omar and his family as they flee their home in the once beautiful city of Bosra. There are no heroes, no crusades, no grand plans being related here; Omar dryly observes that 'being political was no part of my life plan'. Rather, this is a tale of a family cast upon the tides of civil war and simply reacting to it as best they can. It is a tale of everyday challenges, exasperations and privations as well as the instinctive acts of bravery, kindness and resilience that go hand in hand with them.
Elizabeth Laird's writing is like opening a door into this world--she wraps the reader in the minutiae of daily life, and shows us the terrifying gradual slide into the most exceptional of circumstances. It offers readers a true glimpse into the lives of families who have been driven from their homes by violence and forced to grow up in terrible circumstances. Her writing allows us to walk in their shoes at least for a little while. It is a tale told with integrity and incisiveness that more than succeeds in engendering empathy.
A moving and extraordinary tale of bravery, resilience and families enhanced by some atmospheric illustrations by Lucy Eldridge. Everyone should read this book not least because fifty pence per copy of the hardback edition will be donated by Macmillan to an international aid agency supporting the Syrian refugee crisis.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Ryder, Lizzie. "Laird, Elizabeth: Welcome to Nowhere." School Librarian, Spring 2017, p. 41. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A490821311/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e4d79875. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A490821311
Laird, Elizabeth: Dindy and the Elephant
Joy Court
School Librarian. 63.3 (Autumn 2015): p168.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 The School Library Association
http://www.sla.org.uk/school-librarian.php
Full Text:
Laird, Elizabeth
Dindy and the Elephant
Macmillan, 2015, pp122, 6.99 [pounds sterling]
978 1 4472 7240 3
Elizabeth Laird is of course no stranger to the world of the expat abroad, having had a life full of travels in Africa, India, Malaysia, Iraq and the Lebanon and there is no writer better than her at bringing a culture and landscape to life. But to be able to do it so vividly in a story and language accessible to seven year olds is a remarkable feat. What is more, her enjoyable stories also enable her readers to confront some quite serious situations and attitudes and help to create a deeper understanding of the world and other people. So Dindy has grown up on a tea plantation in Kerala, a privileged existence which means she knows very little about the real India. All this changes when she and little brother Pog go off on an adventure which will put them in very real danger and reveal all sorts of truths and secrets about the lives they have been living. Dindy is a lovely character and this uplifting story gives us hope that we can all learn lessons from our colonial past.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Court, Joy. "Laird, Elizabeth: Dindy and the Elephant." School Librarian, Autumn 2015, p. 168. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A431446206/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=30ba7c23. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A431446206