![]() ![]() She explored this and her other brushes with death in her profoundly affecting book I Am, I Am, I Am. She has previously said that she has always felt her life is a bonus, given that she almost died when she contracted encephalitis as an eight-year-old, something which still affects her health. O’Farrell marked a milestone birthday earlier this year, turning 50. It is always going to be a wonderful memory, that so many people responded to that book.” "Suddenly, I was home-schooling two children, so whatever was happening with Hamnet was a drop in the ocean of strangeness, to be honest. I was doing Zoom events and everything was so strange. “In a way, I was very insulated from what happened with Hamnet, it all happened at arm’s length. While the overwhelming response to the book took O’Farrell by surprise, the pandemic had a somewhat tempering effect. The irony of a book about Shakespeare’s son dying in the Plague being published in March 2020 was lost on no-one. However, Hamnet brought her to another level of success and recognition. O’Farrell’s work is highly regarded and she has built up an impressive back catalogue. So I read them aloud to myself, I read them to my kids and I record myself reading them, which of course is so different from the way you construct a full-length novel.” “The most important thing for me about my children’s books is that they work orally. She particularly enjoys the collaborative element of writing picture books, working with the illustrator Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. O’Farrell says that writing children’s stories and adult fiction uses ‘completely different muscles’. ![]() Then they are already on the path to comprehension and healing.” The way you can help a child metabolise something they find difficult to comprehend or understand is by telling a story about it, by transferring it into metaphor. We need it like we need oxygen and the sun. ![]() “As a parent, I’ve really noticed that narrative is a human need. ![]() We have got to try and rebuild that self-assurance and that feeling of security for our children as best we can.”įor O’Farrell, the therapeutic power of stories can never be underestimated. "The only way we can get through these challenges is to share it with other people, to keep talking about it, not to bottle it up. “I just wanted to write a book which was about finding that spark again and how important it is to acknowledge it, to say ‘yes, I’m feeling miserable’. O’Farrell says we shouldn’t underestimate the effect the pandemic had, particularly on some children. Even just the idea of your school closing and not being able to see your pals was scary, let alone this deadly disease that was stalking us all.” "They had all lost their spark, they were so frightened. “It manifested in my children as a loss of joy, a loss of curiosity about life and a fearfulness. When writing The Boy Who Lost His Spark, she was very aware of the impact the pandemic had on younger people, her own three included. O’Farrell’s previous book for children, Where Snow Angels Go, was inspired by a story she would tell to comfort her daughter, who was often hospitalised with severe allergies. “There is something in those Irish myths about the marrying of the landscape with the supernatural world and all of those permeable barriers that is particularly seductive for me in terms of narrative.” It used to really annoy us but actually those stories just really soaked in… they are just part of my blood, DNA and bone now. When I was young, my Dad would only ever read Irish myths and legends to us - we would beg him to read us Pippi Longstocking or Beatrix Potter. “The nouka is a kind of volcano-dwelling beastie. The cover of The Boy Who Lost His Spark, by Maggie O'Farrell. But you can’t put the syllable poo in a children’s book so I had to rename him,” she laughs. “Actually, the nouka is a kind of volcano-dwelling beastie based on the mischievous spirit of the púca. She got the idea of the nouka from the stories told by her Dubliner father when she was growing up. O’Farrell was born in Coleraine, Co Derry, and now lives in Scotland. I thought of this boy who needs something to get him back on track, it seemed like the right story to tell at this moment,” she says. “I think we have all lost our spark a little bit in the last couple of years. ![]()
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