A feast of middle grade books! Interviews with Kristina Rahim and Cath Howe

In this episode we have a feast of middle grade books! We talk first to Kristina Rahim author of the very popular The Doughnut Club, about her second book Max and Ella Stuck Together. 

Max has had a tough year starting secondary school. He has been bullied about having two mums and has lost his confidence. He is even finding it hard to enjoy the music that he used to love. He knows he risks letting his friends down if he has stage fright again at their planned performance and the idea that meeting his sperm donor dad might help him find himself again takes hold.

Ella's dad, Hari, was a sperm donor before she was born and she is fine with it. Or at least thought she was before a kid she has never met before turns up and gatecrashes a family weekend. Things haven't been easy for Ella to with friendship changes and her mum working away a lot.

With Max and Ella very much stuck together, will they find a way to be their true selves?

We also catch up with Cath Howe who we have interviewed before about her younger readers series Call the Puffins. She has another middle grade book out - Two is a Crowd. 

In this latest book, Hattie’s life is already complicated enough… She’s about to start secondary school, her best friend is going off with someone else and her dad seems to have completely forgotten his promise to give her his office for her own bedroom.

So when her mum’s goddaughter, Seren, arrives and gets special treatment, Hattie feels pushed out.

Could it be that Hattie’s family prefer Seren?

Both are great middle grade/early teen reads and grapple realistically with issues that many teenagers will face, through strong story lines and without being 'issue' books.

We also celebrate John Agard winning the CLiPPA Poetry Prize for an unprecedented third time for his collection The Poetry World of John Agard, illustrated by Shirley Hottier, and point listeners to the recording of the ceremony which is well worth watching.

With thanks to Miah Herford for editing the interviews. 

Transcript

Katy 0:11

Hi, I'm Katy.

Ali 0:12

Hi, I'm Ali. And welcome to Mostly Book Talk.

Katy 0:15

So today we have a double treat for you in this episode. First up is an interview with Kristina Rahim, who quite a few of you may have come across her first book, The Doughnut Club, which came out in 2025 and has attracted lots of attention and praise. And we talked to her about her second book, Max and Ella Stuck Together. And we also have a quick interview with Cath Howe about her latest middle grade book, Two Is a Crowd, which is another contemporary story full of the challenges of family, friendship, and growing up. Yep. Enjoy. So we are very pleased to have with us today Kristina Rahim, and she is the author of her first book, which is The Doughnut Club, which came out in 2025 and featured on a number of prize lists. Her second book, Max and Ella Stuck Together, came out in May 2026. And we're very pleased to have her with us. And Kristina, welcome. Can you start just maybe by telling us a bit about yourself? Because you had a bit of a journey to becoming an author and having done other things. So welcome.

Kristina 1:20

Yes, thank you for having me. This is wonderful. I've listened to a lot of your past episodes. So it's a delight to be here myself. Yeah, it was a bit of a late sort of journey going into an unexpected twist in my professional life, I'd say. But yeah, I've worked in lots of different jobs along the way, and then I was doing property development for a good 10, 12 years. And then the wonder of COVID came about, which obviously had an impact on all of us. So I was a bit of a COVID author in the fact that my wife's job carried on. So she was called up in our spare room dealing with all that kind of carnage. And I had the wonderful job of homeschooling two children. Yeah, so that was that was a journey. I mean, wow, teachers are incredible anyway, but they are absolute heroes in wise. So our daughters were year one and year three at the time. And my building projects just kind of ground to a halt at that point. So we had a few months where where that wasn't happening. And so in that process, we had to go out for our daily walks and all of that. And sometimes the kids were a little reluctant to go for a stroll. So I was trying to make it more fun. So we used to make up stories when we used to go to the local parks and it was just good fun. And it would be, you know, what if we came to the park and that squirrel started talking to us? Or what if we came here and all the trees had disappeared and that kind of thing. And they enjoyed it for a week and then they got bored. I realized I really still enjoyed it. So I kind of started taking myself away. And I was working on my own little stories and coming up with characters and plots. And I just got the bug. I started reading more children's books, yeah, different age groups. I joined Write Mentor, which is a wonderful online community that I came about for aspiring authors, which I think had just started itself as well. And so that provided me with this community of other authors that were trying to get themselves published as well. And then the more I learned about it, the more I thought this could be something for me. I started off with picture books. They are very hard to write. Everyone says that. They're deceptively simple. Was it always children's books you were interested in? Was that what the whole focus? I didn't really have time for reading for pleasure for myself at this point. And I was surrounded by books with my kids and they were really into it. So that was kind of where my head was at. And I just thought there's so much fun to be had with children's stories. They could go absolutely anywhere, which I loved. So I just started playing with the idea. And then from picture books, I gave that a go. And that was really tricky. It's still something I might want to go back to now that I've learned more. But then I had stories that I thought could go longer. So then I started reading more middle grade and just loved that, loved that aspect of that. There's so much change that goes on in that age group and so many things that children go through, things that I remember from my childhood, the same experiences of school transitions and friendship dramas and all of that. I started writing and found out the whole process of getting a literary agent and publishing deal, and it all sounded exciting, but I knew nothing about what was happening. So I going in blind, it was a bit of a ignorance's bliss. I wrote three middle grade novels before the Day Night Club, and I tried to go ahead and get signed with agents. And each, but I mean the first one was absolutely dreadful. I mean, that's that's just a glue. Yeah, and I think, but I just learned more each time I wrote and got more critiques and spoke to agents, and you can book these kind of one-to-ones and stuff like that. So that was all very helpful. And it was one of those literary agent chats I had. And the middle grade I'd written at the time, she read the first three chapters and was really interested and asked for the full manuscript. So when I sent her the full manuscript, I also sent an adult short story that I'd written, which was about a donor-conceived 18-year-old meeting her donor for the first time. And I just thought, I'll just put it in, just give an example of some other writing that I've done. And then she came back to me and she she enjoyed the middle grade, but it was kind of a nearly, but not quite for her for that particular story. But she was really taken by the short story. So we had a Zoom call afterwards. All the middle grades I was writing, I always had a donor-conceived character in the stories, but I always had them as secondary characters. I didn't really quite feel confident enough to have them as the main character. And then this literary agent just said, why not have the donor-conceived character as the main character and just see what where that takes you and what ideas you've come up with, because that could be could be interesting. Hasn't been done that often. So having someone in the industry say that to me gave me the confidence to kind of do what I wanted to do in the first place, but I wasn't quite brave enough. And then that's where the Doughnut Club came out of that of that conversation and gave me the confidence to do that. And then I entered that into the PFD queer fiction prize and also a pitching competition, and it all happened at once. There was interest from agents from the pitching competition. And then throughout that process, I then at the end of that, I found out that I won the queer prize, and then that was to be signed with Sylvia Multeni, who was up there as my top favourite agent. So that was very exciting, and that started the journey.

Katy 6:09

Do you want to do a quick overview of the Doughnut Club? And then tell us about Max and Ella because that's your latest one and what we really want to focus on.

Kristina 6:16

The Doughnut Club tells the story of Quinn Parker, who's a 12-year-old donor-conceived girl. And when her mums tell her and her younger brother Ollie that they've got 16 donor siblings that she didn't know existed, she's absolutely delighted because she thinks one of these siblings could be more like her. However, when she starts to discover more, she soon worries that one of them could be her worst enemy. And it's it's set by the beach in the UK. It's a holiday story, lots of antics of friendship dramas and beachside dramas and family fallouts and all of those things. So it's a good invention of all. And it was kind of inspired by a conversation with my own six-year-old when she was trying to explain to someone at her school that she had a donor instead of a daddy. And when she was asked that question, her friend was like, You've got a donut. Which she didn't quite understand. And it was one of those, yeah, okay. So kids don't really know about donor kids, so maybe this needs to be needs to be shared and talked about. So that's the donut club. And then, like you say, Max and El Stuck Together is my second one published with Nosy Crow. And this one is a dual narrative story. The characters, Max and El, the perspective alternates throughout the story. And it's basically a book about two families that are thrown together because of a decision that the parents made years ago. You've got Max, he's got two mums, and they used a known sperm donor called Harry to have him. He's had a tough year starting secondary school. He's kind of lost his confidence a little bit and he's developed stage fright, which is a real pain because he's a drummer in a band and they've got a charity concert coming up. So his mum suggests maybe it might be an idea to meet Harry just to see if that helps you understand yourself a bit better and get your confidence back. Then you've got Ella, who's Harry's daughter, and she's absolutely fine the fact that he was a sperm donor all those years ago. But what she's not fine about is the idea of sharing her dad with anyone, especially this new kid that's come out of nowhere. And she's going through her own problems at the moment. Her mum works abroad a lot, so she's missing her. And her best friend is starting a different senior school, so she's going through enough change as it is. So she's a bit cross that this decision her dad made in his past is messing with her future. And so when Max gate crashes their family hiking weekend, things do not go to plan and they end up being pushed to the edge in more ways than one, shall we say?

Ali 8:30

I wondered which voice came first. Was it Ella's or Max's?

Kristina 8:34

It was Ella's that came to me first. And I kind of had the idea of just someone who's at home and happy in her world, but then there are these changes that keep coming, and she just likes she likes things the way she likes them, and she likes a plan. And so big things that can happen that change that is like your best friend being taken away from you because you end up at different schools and just the sort of uncertainty of having a parent whose job takes them away as well. So I just thought I thought that was an interesting kind of 11-year-old character to have. And what else could really throw her world into a mix?

Katy 9:07

There's a bit of a suggestion that she likes that order, doesn't she? But I think still for any teenager or coming up to teen tween because she's that sort of 11, 12, there's that sense that small things are just absolutely massive. You kind of feel her big emotions around that. And I you can see that in children and teenagers, that sort of just sense of the now is so important, and also everything is focused around them because that's what it is to be a teenager.

Kristina 9:36

It's it is they're just in that this is my world, and everything that affects it minute by minute is everything. And yeah, we see that with our own kids. We remember that feeling as children, and I remember being cross with my own parents saying sentences like, Oh, it'll be fine, or you you won't be worried about this next week, or and it you just can't take that at that age, can you? It's the worst thing to me. And I hear myself saying it as a parent, and I'm gonna have to try and stop myself.

Katy 10:04

So, your first book, The Doughnut Club, came directly from your own family experience? Yeah, definitely inspired by ours, yeah. And was Max and Ella the same? Is it something that you'd sort of come across yourself in real life? And was there an inspiration, a particular sort of something that inspired that, or was it just thinking about different angles that might come through in terms of that story?

Kristina 10:26

Yeah, I think well, the Doughnut Club was was very much inspired by our own experiences. So that kind of felt very personal in a way, but obviously it's all fiction, but it is inspired by our journey. And then I think just by getting more stories out there about different types of families, it was just an explanation of how else could it affect children's lives now, these decisions that grown-ups make to start families and create families. I really like the dual-narrative aspect, and so this kind of setup just felt right that it could explore that, just to see it from different angles.

Katy 10:57

For me, reading it felt really real that those children could really exist and that but it's a believable arc and it's they feel real, they feel like real kids rather than story book kids.

Kristina 11:08

That's good to hear, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I think just trying to get that voice of two characters. I mean, as much as I enjoyed doing the dual narrative, it I gave myself a bit of a challenge because I've never done that before. I'm so grateful to my editor, Zoe, because when I said to her about the idea and how I might want to try dual narrative, she was just like, crack on, just try, see, see what happens. And it was good fun to do.

Katy 11:29

And so when you did it, did you do all of one story on all of the other story, or did you do did you alternate as you were writing?

Kristina 11:37

I alternated as I was writing. I couldn't quite do the because you are basically writing two separate stories in a way, but I had to keep the plot in my head and then just see it from different angles. And also with that, you don't want to repeat the same thing, like the same scene, over and over in a way. So it was easier when they were apart because the book starts seeing their lives as they are, and then they obviously come together, and then you're looking at it from different points of view. Was one of them easier than the other? No, they both had their annoying bits at times, just getting them right of how they would react in certain situations.

Katy 12:09

Both families have a really open discussion about the donor side of things. Is that your experience in that world that people are quite open and talk about it, or are there still families that are they don't talk about it?

Kristina 12:21

I think the majority that I personally have met are definitely more wanting to be open, and I think that's something that's actively encouraged within the donor kind of community, whether it's people wanting to start families that way or people that are in the early stages, if they have the information, you can all understand it together. And if people have questions, then you just answer them. So that's personally how we've dealt with our family setup and just always been there and available. So I think the families that I've met are had that same wavelength, really. And I think that's what's important to show in the books that I write as well, is just that it it just is what it is. Like families are just made differently. There's not necessarily donors, you know, you've got step stepfathers, stepmothers, adopted parents, blended families, there's all manner of different ways. And I think the more kids see that, and they see that in their own classrooms and who they sit next to at school, they're everyone's got a different family one way or another. So it's just having that honesty and confidence that this is just us, this is our family.

Katy 13:19

Yeah.

Kristina 13:19

I mean, Max is being bullied because of his family. For Max, he had a bit of a run-in with a boy because he's got two mums, and it was just that can happen. But I think that also I thought was important to show. But also the outcome is just more just Max. I mean, the confidence like he he was that this is just his family. That's the way it is. And when you have that confidence to say that, people just get bored of making comments.

Katy 13:43

You write in the offernote about the numbers that by 2030 that there'll be one or two.

Kristina 13:48

Yeah, in every state primary school, which is yeah, donor conceived child. That's from the HFEA. That's one of their stats that they've got. I think that we're probably there already, if I'm honest, just going by my own experience of visiting schools over the last year. I've had the joy of going into schools and doing all the visits and assemblies and workshops. And I would say from just from that experience alone, probably 80% of the tri the visits I've done, at some point at the end or at the book signing, one child or two children have come up to me saying, Oh, I've got a donor too, or thanks for writing this. I've got two mums, or my friend from Scouts, he's got two dads, and I've told him about your book, and that's what makes it so important. And then I get really excited about the fact that I am getting these stories out there because just seeing their little face and they're just so delighted that they're like, Oh, this is the first time I've seen a character that's like me, that's why I'm doing it, really. And and also just to create a greater awareness amongst all their mates, so they don't have to have conversations where they get donut and donut confused, you know.

Katy 14:46

Yeah, I like I like that. It took me a while to work out why it was called that, and then yeah. So, how have school visits been going? We know that authors aren't necessarily naturally inclined to go into schools because they like sitting in a room writing.

Kristina 15:00

Yeah, I think there's half of children's authors that are either ex-teachers or ex-performers and they're very happy and comfortable in that environment. And then there's the rest of us who are exactly, as you said, naturally introverted, quite like just sitting at home, typing away, delighted to get books out there in the world and think that that's your job. It's just to write the stories. And then you suddenly find out very quickly that 50% of the job is talking about your book, presenting your book to rooms full of sometimes grown-ups, sometimes children, sometimes both. Yeah, it's quite daunting. So it was definitely part of the job I was the most nervous about to begin with. But I'd honestly say, after even just the first visits, and even though my heart was racing in the car before I went in and I was properly nervous, they're just amazing. Like being able to meet the kids and talk to them about your book and just see their faces and they get excited and they're just curious and interested and engaged, and they're just delighted not to be doing maths at that point. And I absolutely loved it. So I've been I'm enjoying the visits more than I thought I would, which has been a lovely surprise, actually.

Katy 16:03

And this one's just out now when we're talking to you. So you're kind of in that promoting this one, but are you also working? Because it's a three-book deal. Is it working on the third book?

Kristina 16:13

I am doing book edits at the moment for book three, which is so there's a lot of different characters in my head at the moment, so that then now it's kind of talking about and still promoting the Doughnut Club, which is brilliant, promoting Max and Larry, and then I'm doing edits on book three and trying to create different school visits as well, so that I'm combining both stories as well. Yeah, it's it's a lot, but it's all very exciting, like all of it's brilliant.

Katy 16:34

You're not missing flipping houses and doing not so much. And are you allowed to tell us anything about the next book? I don't really know I'm allowed to say what I'm saying.

Kristina 16:44

Normally you get told, you we get I don't I mean we have a title. I don't know whether I'm meant to share the title, but it's gonna be set in a music festival, and this time it's following a character who has a solo mum by choice, and basically she ends up for various reasons wanting to be in a bit of a cool gang at school. She she makes up a bit of a story about who her fake dad is, and that lie obviously runs away and spirals and gets her into a bit of trouble. Interesting.

Katy 17:09

Okay, so that's good. And when's that when's that due?

Kristina 17:12

I believe that will be May next year. So not too far off.

Katy 17:16

Nice. I think that's worth saying that there's a danger in terms of listening that you kind of think that the books are kind of very issue-led, but they're not actually. Well, there are some quite tense moments, some quite muddy moments. I don't think that's giving anything away. The things that the the characters are dealing with are centered around donor conception and those issues, but actually they're just dealing with loads of teenage stuff.

Kristina 17:39

Yeah, that's what I really tried to do. That's what's important to me. It's that they're not issue books, they're just fun stories for kids and just the main characters happen to come into the world differently to other kids.

Katy 17:49

There are definitely funny moments as well. So music is a bit of a thing in Max and Ellerin that Max is a is a drummer and he's kind of trying to find a bit where his musical streak comes from. Is music something that's in your background as well?

Kristina 18:02

I love music. I'm I'm a big music fan, and but I can't sing, I can't play anything. I've got literally no musical bone in my body. Our youngest is a drummer, which I'm envious of, and so she tries to teach me. I've always been a music fan, and so yes, I think just the whole live music, and I have a very eclectic music taste, which is thanks to my parents, I think. But I always had music in the house around me when I was growing up. We used to have one of those old school seven-inch single jukeboxes, which they brought, which is really fun. So music is a big part of me that I enjoy.

Katy 18:34

We wanted to ask you, it's the national year of reading, and we wanted to ask you have you got any hopes for the year?

Kristina 18:41

I guess to just keep encouraging children to be curious and to be interested in anything and everything around them. And I think that kind of encouragement is not just about books, it's about anything. It doesn't have to be fiction, it doesn't have to be non-fiction, it could be magazines, comics, it's just whatever you've got an interest in. Just be curious because the more kids are curious and ask questions, then they'll want to search for the answer. And to try and search that in stories is a great way to do it rather than just reaching for Google. If you dive into a fictional book, you can see through the eyes of a character and learn a lot more than you can from just reading some little snippet online.

Katy 19:18

How to get them, how to get them hooked in the first place is the is the challenge.

Kristina 19:22

Yeah, but I think if you if you get kids interested in or just listen to what they are interested in, and then you'll find a book for them because there is a book for anything and everything. And that's what an amazing gift that school librarians are, and librarians and teachers, and the ones that are so passionate about stories, their knowledge and their passion of that helps guise children. So if a child comes to them and says, Oh, I'm really interested in skateboarding, they'll go, Right, here's five, here's a graphic novel that has a character.

Katy 19:48

And when you were doing all your reading about pitch books and middle grade and everything, was there any books that you came across that you think didn't maybe get the recognition that they should have done?

Kristina 19:59

That you'd recommend? In a way, I went the reverse because there were some books that were sort of classics that I hadn't read ever. And I kind of discovered them through my kids' reading book lists from school, like holes I'd never read. Ones that read, I have got a pile of books that I need to do reviews on that I have read recently, but they're hang on a second. Crack N Two as a Crowd. I read that recently. She obviously she's brilliant and she's been around a little while and is very successful. I just think her way of just getting into the characters straight away, you feel them and understand what they're going through. And she can touch upon sort of big topics as well, but does it in such a relatable, accessible way, which is something I try and do as well with my story. So I really enjoyed that.

Katy 20:38

What do your children think of you writing?

Kristina 20:40

It's hilarious, I think, because they're 11 and 13. So obviously they're going through the ages. When I first started writing, my eldest was very much my first editor. Red Pen was out, she was excellent at that, she's a big reader, but now she has grown through my books. So she's into the YA world. So she's very supportive and very excited about it all, but whether she's interested in reading my books, whereas my youngest is now has the red pen, so she's all over it and is a huge fan and supporter, which has been lovely. They love a book launch, that's for sure.

Katy 21:11

And do they you do you use them to get the pattern of teen speak and tween speak right?

Kristina 21:18

I'm surrounded by children generally just having them. So you kind of pick up various things. I almost try not to put in too much kind of time-specific language, because in a way that it it gets old in about two months. I mean, even our kids, you know, will say something that they were saying three months ago and then they'll look at us like we're talking a foreign language.

Katy 21:40

So it changes really quickly. It's not so much the kind of slang words and the it's the way in which they they kind of talk about stuff, isn't it?

Kristina 21:49

It I think with our meaning too, it probably does seep in their way of saying things or um Yeah, I think so.

Ali 21:57

I mean, my kids are much older, a grown adults. humans now but there's a lot of roly eyes still every now and again side eye I think I called um I think I said something about going to the West End and they were like oh for goodness sake central

Katy 22:14

central it's central okay it's central okay yeah so even I've picked up on that central south north east yeah

Kristina 22:23

so West End is out we don't say

Ali 22:25

West End just like makes you basically a hundred years ago

Kristina 22:28

okay good to know thank you for that I definitely still say that

Katy 22:34

oh well brilliant it's been really nice talking to you thank you

Ali 22:42

we are delighted to welcome Kath Howe back onto the podcast talking about her new book Two is a Crowd it's lovely to have you back Kath and last time we talked it was all about the puffins and this time you're back with your middle grade hat on tell us about this new book.

Cath 23:01

So Two is a Crowd is a story about family upheaval. So it's told from the viewpoint of a girl called Hattie and Hattie in the summer of year six she's getting ready to think about secondary school and they get a message to say that another girl is going to have to move in to her family and live with them for a while. The girl is called Seren and she is the mum's goddaughter same age as Hattie. Hattie has two brothers an older one called Cory and a younger one called Thomas and her mum and dad and when she first gets the news this other girl's going to have to move in it's because the other girl has been living with her granddad. She's been brought up by her granddad and he's had an accident and was in hospital. So we don't know how long Seren is going to move in to live with Hattie's family but Hattie's mum feels very strongly that this other girl she's got to take responsibility to look after this girl for as long as it takes until the granddad is recovered. And Hattie starts thinking it's going to be interesting to have another girl but quite quickly she starts to feel quite irritated by the presence of the other girl.

Katy 24:17

It feels like Hattie's story kind of sits quite nicely with some of your with your other middle grade books. Has she been in your head for quite a long time or the themes of the book been in your head quite a long time or was it something that came to you recently?

Cath 24:31

A bit of a mixture really it is an area that I'm really interested in where you get somebody else who tags along in your family and then somehow fits the family better than you do. I've always been quite fascinated by that. And I suppose you sometimes get that with your own kids teenage friends where the friend obviously feels very comfortable with you and in your house. So you get all these kind of spilling over into families anyway. So I suppose it has been in my head for a long time and also that feeling of kind of a lot of change happening when you're leaving your primary school it seems to lend itself to a kind of big upheaval mentally anyway. So it doesn't take much I think to make something that ignites yeah Hattie's got a lot on her plate.

Ali 25:19

Yes yeah she really has. But it's quite interesting as well because the other protagonist Seren who's coming into the house has also got a lot going on. So how did you balance those two stories?

Cath 25:31

Very early on I said to Nosy Crow that I wanted Seren's story to be told in images and I'd actually been drawing the images myself. I'd been as I was writing the story I was thinking I really need Seren's point of view here but I didn't want to just write it. I felt that she was a much more very just a very different character and I thought that it would be interesting if you had drawings which were giving you clues to how things were for Seren. And that's really how it all began I was writing the book and then thinking how is this going to build and how will the reader get a sense of Seren which I think they do from the way it's been done.

Katy 26:08

No absolutely and it it's quite tricky isn't it to because her story is her parents have am I is this a spoiler I don't think it is a spoiler. I think it's clear from the beginning so her parents have died and so she's and she's living with her grandfather and it and that's a a really sad and difficult situation to be in. Yes but you also feel at the same time sorry for Hattie even though actually on the surface of it most of her problems are not as life changing or as difficult as that so it's quite a it's quite an achievement for you to to have the reader feel sympathetic towards both of them Hattie doesn't always help herself.

Cath 26:51

No I definitely wanted that I wanted Hattie to be unreasonable. I'm very interested by the main character in a book I'm writing messing up or making a bad decision because I think that's just really honest about what we do and what we're like yeah I really wanted that feeling of Hattie going almost being her own worst enemy which I think somebody actually says at one point.

Katy 27:15

Yeah and that jealousy is that it's really difficult to write isn't it because it's not a very nice emotion.

Cath 27:23

No it's not and it's quite an out of control kind of emotion and it colours lots of things. I think it is it's an uncomfortable thing but I hope she feels quite warm and in sometimes quite funny as well. So I hope that kind of adds another element to because you don't just want her to be jealous you want her to be a whole character.

Katy 27:44

Yeah and you do feel for her because her family aren't really great at understanding what's going on in her life.

Cath 27:51

Yeah I think her mum feels so concerned about this other girl and obviously wants to welcome her and knows that she's never lived in a family before. So that's huge, isn't it? And obviously both parents working we're at the summer holidays when everything gets a bit stressful anyway a house full of people storming around so yeah I think it is it's bound to be difficult for everybody and I hope I'm conveying that it's actually quite difficult for the parents too.

Katy 28:19

Yeah I think it will definitely hit a nerve and people be able to give reflections in their own kind of lives because it is it's complicated isn't it it's what families are like they're not simple linear things. Yeah there are times when your parents really want you to behave well as a parent I understand that too yeah you can see it from both sides yeah exactly and there's a food bank makes a kind of becomes a sort of character in the book actually how did that come into the story?

Cath 28:48

It was an experience I had during the pandemic of visiting a food bank and I was preparing some food but I got involved with the donations of all sorts of things in plastic bags in a church next to the the place where the food was being made and I just witnessed this amazing sight of miles upon miles of these plastic bags and people taking round donations putting them into each bag and I found it a very welcoming place. It felt very as if you could just appear and somehow get involved and try and help. So I just imagined it would be a place where Hattie might find herself and feel differently. So it gives her a kind of another space where she can find herself and I just thought it would be a kind space. So that's why I wanted the food bank in the story. It isn't there as a food bank in a way it's there to represent a kind space which I that was my hope.

Katy 29:53

Yeah it's a kind of fresh start for her there's no preconceptions about although she's mistaken really for someone else when she arrives and and then just kind of doesn't contradict them when they assume that she's yeah yeah and and also probably worth mentioning that Nosy Crow's been making your publisher's been making some donations to book banks. They have which is fantastic yeah that's a brilliant thing. Yeah I'm delighted about that.

Cath 30:17

Yeah.

Katy 30:18

In lots of your books the middle grey books there's kind of kindness and there's hope through it even though lots of things go wrong is that something you are really conscious about including in it?

Cath 30:30

Yes I am an optimist and I really do think that one of the things that everyone's been talking about since the pandemic and through it as well is this idea of resilience. So you know not necessarily just what do we face but what do we then do how do we then evolve and I think that's very true for children that idea of finding a new direction or finding some strength they didn't know they had and I'm a great believer in books giving them that kind of slightly like a sort of armour and I think I've done it in every middle grade book actually I've shown them the way out that the character takes that the sort of some of the solutions are inside them. I feel that really strongly I think we need a lot of hope to be happy in that period of our lives and but I don't want to be preachy about it. I just want to feel that the reader feels supported and that there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Ali 31:28

Yeah I think that is important and especially for that age group as well as there's change and transition to secondary school and all of those big things something about having ideas and stories of what other even though they're fictional children are going through gives you something to hold on to and to think about in a different way I think.

Cath 31:45

Yes and when I'm lucky enough to get letters from children that's what they say. So they're all they're about that feeling of feeling better feeling supported and I I think that's fantastic. If anyone can do that with writing I think that's a really big thing to to aim for really

Katy 32:03

yeah and I think it's a really important time isn't it because I think from thinking about that transition process the kids do play through all of those scenarios of what's going to happen if I get to secondary school and I don't have you know I'm not with my best friends I'm or I'm having to have lunch and nobody wants to sit with me or I don't know where to go or I can't find my way round or I've just got so much homework and all of those fears are explored aren't they?

Cath 32:35

I've got a background as a secondary school teacher. I've had a year seven form. So I've I've seen it from a number of different angles some children seem at the end of year six to be ready to go to secondary school and are desperate to get out of the door and go. And other children you think oh I wonder how that's going to work gosh that they don't seem old enough somehow and there's that whole change that needs to happen and it's a massive thing.

Ali 33:01

Because they're super tiny aren't they they're massive in primary and then they start secondary school and they're mini their bag and they're blazer and everything about them is grey. And I remember my son telling me that in order to find he had to you know the school's a big place and suddenly you have to find your way around it. You're not just in one classroom and he went a very he told me when we went to a parent's day the way he went up the stairs he went all the way around the school and up the backstairs because that was less scary than the front stairs where all the towering giant year whatever they were year 13s were hammering down. So bless him in his massive bag and his massive rucksack he went a very long way so he must have done lots more steps than he needed to in order to avoid the hordes

Katy 33:48

I just remember my daughter being told that she had to have the list that you get when they first start I remember having to be told that she had to carry around a dictionary at all times which I never and of course first child going to secondary school I was faithful bought everything on the list and she went off with this dictionary in her bag and after a while it was just like do I really have to carry this round I have never used it in an enormous bag. I was like no probably not then yeah so it's great I think for children to be able to read about it to process that stuff before before they go to secondary school it's great. Can I just ask one question uh Amber and Lisa redeemable? Are they redeemable?

Cath 34:28

I don't redeem them I think that there are encounters that that don't that I don't explain and that's true in all my books as well I don't always want people to turn out to be actually really nice and have or have some sort of lurking thing at home that means that they there it's all explainable. I I think things you have run-ins and things happen when you at school and they're not explained to you so I don't explain them in the books. I guess most people are redeemable you could write the story of Amber I suspect. So

Katy 34:58

you kind of get the hint that her parents aren't the easiest to live with

Cath 35:01

yeah absolutely yeah no I'm very uneasy about Amber's parents it's just a slice that we get of Amber and Lisa. I don't like Lisa's attitude to her coat though. She's very queen bee about her coat and I don't like that. She would really infuriate me.

Ali 35:18

It's nice to be able to write infuriating characters and leave in the book not in your house. So what so Cath, this is great we're it's great to catch up. What are you what else are you working on as was this is just out it's always we know you're always everyone's always on the next thing.

Cath 35:34

I'm writing another story which is about family and it's about uh blended family again it's it but it's two siblings uh a boy and a girl so it's I'm going straight into the same territory again but with very different kinds of character and working on a new one yeah and hopefully there'll be some younger one too I've got various thoughts in the pipeline for that too. After the puffins I've really enjoyed doing events with the younger end. I think it's fun to do both and to work with both. That's the plan.

Katy 36:04

Exciting we really enjoyed it and it does sit they do sit very much as a kind of a group a body of books that that you can very easily go if you enjoyed this you will enjoy that.

Cath 36:16

Oh that's great. Yeah I hope that's true and I always try and work from character onwards so I think all the characters are quite different in my books but the approach I I think I include a lot of dialogue because I love dialogue. That's something that's very true of all of them. So they're quite readable I think.

Katy 36:34

Brilliant it's been great to catch up good to talk to you and it is out there in in the world. It is brilliant. So Cath Howe Two is a Crowd so two really great middle grade books there both dealing with kind of issues around well family complex family growing up just all of those things that teenagers are kind of dealing with finding finding their place and working out who they are.

Ali 37:06

Yeah it's uh it's been it's been interesting Kristina said that she's had some schools who don't want her to go in.

Katy 37:13

Yeah I've seen it on her Instagram as yeah I just find it

Ali 37:17

Because of the two is that because of the two mums thing?

Katy 37:20

Yeah and then just the sort of sense which is just I I find it really ridiculous that particularly when she talks about the statistics of of like the number I mean you think about it the the likelihood of there being a child who is born from some form of assisted conception and donor conception and and so there will there are just a lot of children who are the result of donor conception and those numbers of children will grow and just by logic there will be people whose parents are donor conceived and you know it's just a reality of how things have changed and what's happening in people's lives and the idea that you should pretend that's not going on and that there aren't just families of all sorts of different shapes and sizes oh I just I don't understand that it feels like we're going backwards not forwards.

Ali 38:13

And I just checked and it says um online that one in one one in 137 children are conceded with a donor.

Katy 38:21

Yeah. And that that number will be going up. Yeah yeah so anyway uh there are so many things to express exasperation about but that has come add that one to the list.

Katy 38:32

Absolutely yeah so the only other thing I say is that that both of these books they deal with like issues in different kinds of issues in different ways but they're very kind of they're accessible. They're accessible but also they're not they're not didactic. They're not kind of like I'm going to take you through this. They are led by the story.

Katy 38:55

And there's a story that happens to have these protagonists in it so having this experience and the story is still you know first and foremost foremost for foremost foremost first and foremost is what I was trying to say.

Katy 39:12

Okay so following up on another episode that we did where we interviewed Nicola Davis we had a very nice chat with her she is the chair of the CLiPPAr Poetry Prize judging committee judging panel yeah and we we talked to her so if you haven't listened to that go back and listen to it but the prize has now been announced.

Ali 39:31

Yeah and that is John Agard who won the CLPE Poetry Award The CLiPPA for a third time for his collection The Poetry World of John Agard illustrated by Shirley Hottier. Yeah that's never happened before has it I think no it's unprecedented.

Katy 39:50

Unprecedented okay and what I would say is I think you still can watch the ceremony online and John Agard's speech is brilliant he's just delight to watch and and interacts with the audience in a really lovely way and there are some great readings by children and some of the other shortlisted poets and it's it's a nice watch and you can find it on their YouTube channel I think or or go if you go to the CLPE website or you just put in you you will be able to find the ceremony and you can go and watch that.