Tom has worked with Reading Force for over ten years and we’re really happy that he is also a patron of Reading Force. He has written children’s books set in the British Army (Over the Line), Royal Navy (Arctic Star) and Royal Air Force (Spitfire). Tom’s series Rugby Academy is about a school where most of the characters are service children. He works with Forces families to get the facts right.
For over ten years you’ve been a wonderful advocate for Reading Force, and now we’re lucky to have you as a patron, can you tell us what the charity represents for you?
It’s the way you use reading to support and bring together Forces families. And most of all the idea of a deployed parent reading the same book even though they are separated. I like that idea a lot.
So many kids go straight for your books when we’re at family days and events, which is a joy for us to witness. At the same time, we’re aware that you were not a reader when you were a child. Your journey from not being into books to being the creator of 72 books is magnificent. Do you have reflections on this shift?
Reading wasn’t for me. It didn’t mean anything to me. I felt rubbish about myself when confronted with books. It was only when I realised that reading about your hobby (football for me) was a thing you could do that I started to dislike reading less. And that it didn’t have to be books, it could be newspapers, websites, magazines.
Are you able to tell us a little about when you first had the thought you would like to write books and how that unfolded? Was it exciting, scary?!
I had my favourite writers after a while. I wanted to be like them. I looked up to them. I went to see one or two of them do talks and thought… hang on… they’re not that different to me, maybe I could do it. It wasn’t scary. Around the same time – age 21 – my dad died and I was completely unable to talk about how I felt. I was on fire inside. Then I found that writing a poem or a diary about it made me feel better. Those two things together made me want to try and do it.
We find it painful when we hear children are made to feel small because they struggle with reading (and when military adults say they were made to feel small when they were at school). What would you say to a child or young person who feels reading books isn’t for them?
I’d say they are partly right. I’d say most books are NOT for you. And that that’s not your fault. I don’t like at least half the books I start. some are boring and some I just don’t feel like reading… I just get tired of them. You just have to find the right book for you and it doesn’t have to be a book. It could be a comic or a website. If you read a book by me and don’t like it after 20 pages, please stop and read something else. You haven’t failed: I have… as a writer.
You often work with Barrington Stoke, the dyslexia friendly publisher – we love Barrington Stoke too! Although dyslexia is much more recognised today, we often hear from families that they have to fight for the resources to support their dyslexic children. Do you think things are still improving for dyslexic readers?
I do. Slowly. But too slowly. Barrington Stoke books work. They should be on the tables in bookshops and in window displays, but instead we have celebrities many of who don’t write their own books and to be honest some celebrity books (though not all, I have to admit) are rubbish, badly written.
Big question coming! Why do books matter?
To me… they make me happy, they take me on adventures into stuff I don’t know, they distract me when I am not feeling happy, they help me work stuff out in my head. But that’s just me. It is different for everyone, I think. I can only answer for me.
Do you remember which of your books has been the most fun to write? Or the most interesting?
The ones where research takes me on an adventure. I’ve trekked through cocoa bean farms in Ghana, gone in the engine room of a massive cruise ship, camped on a football pitch, camped on a mountain top all night. I love doing that sort of thing. I try to put bits in my books that mean I
have to do wild research.
You have talked with lots of military children and young people when researching some of your books and when visiting schools, and you’re well-aware of the issues that arise for military families. Do you have a message for them?
Yes. Thank you. To all of you. What your families do for this country is amazing. That’s whoever is in the forces, but their partners, children and parents. Thank you.
Finally, can you tell us when your next book will be out, and what book you are currently reading?
Next book is out in May. It is called If The Invader Comes and is about how the children of the adults who were here to defend Britain in WW2 were impacted by what their parents had to do.
I am reading a book called The Real Dad’s Army, a diary of a Home Guard man in WW2, by Col Rodney Foster.
Thank you so much Tom!