Chae Strathie: A bit of a loon

Last week saw the publication of The Loon on the Moon, written by Chae Strathie and illustrated by Emily Golden. Chae stops by the blog to tell us about his inspiration for the book.

Let's begin with a quick quiz. No prizes -  it's just for fun!  

Was my inspiration for the Loon

a) a sausage

b) 18th Century prime minister George Grenville

c) the moon

The answer is, of course, a) a sausage. The book was originally titled The Loon on the Sausage, but for some reason the "experts" at Scholastic didn't think it "worked". The fools! It would have been an international smash of Rowling-esque proportions!

Okay - that's utter poppycock. Here's the REAL story of the birth of The Loon.

One lovely black starry night in deepest Fife I was in the garden of my magnificent castle with my daughter Eilidh. We were peering at the moon through a small, battered, hand-held telescope that had belonged to my grandad Sandy, trying to see if there really is a man on the moon doing... stuff. (What does he get up to up there?)

Well, it was a beautiful half moon that night and that sparked a small thought in my small head. What if the light in the moon was powered by lightbulbs and goes through its phases as it runs out of power before being fuelled again?

I wrote down my small thought in a small notebook with a small pencil and forgot about it for a while, which is what I do with most of my small thoughts.

When I discovered it again some time later I realised it could make a jolly good story for a jolly good picture book. But who would be the one to light the moon, and what with?

The Loon himself appeared fairly quickly - it was just a matter of finding a suitable rhyme for "Moon", and "Loon" had the perfect oddball feel for a character who lives on the moon and zooms with a boom wherever he goes.

And what could be better to power the night-time moon than the night-time dreams of children?

After that I had great fun coming up with all the weird and wonderful aliens to populate the "Looniverse". Jiffles from Jupiter, Moptops from Mars - I love a bit of alliteration!

I was, ahem, over the moon (sorry) when the fantastic, wise people at Scholastic found Emily Golden to illustrate the book. She made an AMAZING job of it.

I hope I baked a pretty tasty cake with The Loon, but without Emily's incredible decoration it would look awfully boring.

Having The Loon published is a massive honour and I'm so grateful to everyone involved.

There's nothing quite like seeing the words you wrote in a dark wee corner of a room packaged up in a beautiful book on a shelf in a bookshop or library - or, even better, in the hands of a child.

That's all from me. I'm off to start work on The Loon on the Sausage.

Zoom with a boom!
                                                 
Chae

Last week members of the children's team went out to dinner with Chae Strathie and Emily Golden to celebrate the book's launch. Check out Chris's interview with Chae and Emily:

The Loon on the Moon is featured on the new Bookbug’s Library Challenge Collector Cards, a library-joining incentive scheme from Scottish Book Trust.  Find out more at www.scottishbooktrust.com/bookbug and ask for details at your local library.

Other news:

Booktrust down in England are officially launching The Shape Game today. Many writers, illustrators and other celebrities have played the game and you can now buy their pictures on eBay! We've already seen a few that we fancy. Which ones would you like to have on your wall?

Enid Blyton's Famous Five are getting a modern makeover. Read about it on The Guardian online.