Toby Ibbotson

Toby Ibbotson

About Author

Toby Ibbotson is the eldest son of award-winning author Eva Ibbotson, whose novel The Abominables he edited with her first publisher, Marion Lloyd, following his mother's death. Mountwood School for Ghosts is his debut novel, from an original idea by Eva and planned out in detail by the two of them before her death.

Containing all the warmth, humour and spark of Eva's novels for younger readers, Mountwood School for Ghosts marks out Toby as an exciting new storytelling talent in the children's book world.

He lives in Sweden with his family and writes whenever he can.

Author link

www.panmacmillan.com

Interview

MOUNTWOOD SCHOOL FOR GHOSTS

PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN CHILDREN'S BOOKS

OCTOBER 2014


Mountwood School for Ghosts was conceived by the late Eva Ibbotson (award-winning author of books including Journey to the River Sea), with her son Toby Ibbotson, who has now completed the novel. It is aimed at readers aged 9+.

The Mountwood School for Ghosts is created by three 'Great Hagges' who take it upon themselves to set up a school for ghosts to counter the prevailing trend for ghosts to be seen as whimsical and even - perish the thought - nice! But when their student ghosts are drawn into a battle to save a town from developers, they take on more than they realise and face a fight for survival.

The story sparkles with magical touches - that crossing between reality and the magical that Eva managed so well - and is imbued with all the warmth, humour and quirkiness that we have come to expect in an Ibbotson novel, as well as touching on many contemporary themes such as local campaigning and the environment.

While the novel was created as a collaboration between Eva and Toby Ibbotson, the sureness of touch in its delivery promises much from debut author Toby and we're looking forward to reading his next novel.

We were also delighted to be able to ask Toby Ibbotson how Mountwood School for Ghosts was created, and his 'apprenticeship' with his mother, author Eva Ibbotson.


Q: You talk about having worked as 'a sounding board and accomplice' for Eva during the last phase of her writing career - can you explain what that entailed?

A: Talk talk talk. Silly ideas laughed at and rejected. Good ideas noted. And at the end, more serious plotting... What happens then? How could they get there in time? My mother did the writing.


Q: What did that period, that apprenticeship, teach you?

A: This could be a very long answer indeed. That you get up in the morning and work even when you are old and feel awful. That you fill several fat notebooks with something that you think will turn into a book and then bin it. That you even write several chapters, and then bin it. That you don't let go of a word, or sentence, or paragraph, until you've got it right, or as right as you can get it. That sometimes the only way forward is to delete the bit that you were most satisfied with... I assure you I could go on.


Q: While those insights are hugely valuable, was it also harder for you to write for children because of your mother's career? How does it feel to be an author?

A: This is a clever question. It is no good me complaining that it is hard to write for children because of my mother, is it? I wouldn't have written this book at all if it wasn't for her. And as for what might have been... well you can't go there, can you? It doesn't exist.

Generally speaking she is a very hard act to follow, that goes without saying, but I comfort myself with thoughts of Martin Amis... and Vanessa Redgrave... and Emanuel Bach... and so on. (Though at a much humbler level, of course).

In fact, if you think about it, and if you accept that writing is above all a craft (a view to which I adhere), then you can comfort yourself with generation after generation of Japanese potters who didn't find it odd that their forebears were their betters. And my grandmother was a writer too...

How does it feel to be an author? You get a parcel from the publisher, and open it, and there is a book with your name on it. That takes some beating, believe me.


Q: How far had you and Eva worked through the ideas for Mountwood School for Ghosts and when did you begin to write it?

A: The thing was pretty well tied up when she died, or at least we thought it was. The main characters, the plot, even down to the timeline and chapters.

I had been visiting her in England, and I was ready to go home and leave her to it. "OK, Ma, now all you have to do is write it." She pulled a face at me, and when I took on the task of writing it myself, I understood why. "All you have to do..." Ha Ha. I started about a year ago, but worked very sporadically until people started breathing down my neck.


Q: What was the germ of the idea for the Mountwood School?

A: I wish I could answer that question, but I really can't. The seed was sown somewhere in my mother's imagination, and I wasn't party to it. But we chuckled a lot at the idea of making fun of all the soppy, charming ghosts in children's books, because a lot of them were created by her. At the beginning, when the Hagges read aloud from the newspaper, they are basically quoting from the blurb of one of my mother's books. No one has picked that up yet. The snake eating its tail, if you see what I mean.


Q: How important is it for you that fantasy ideas like a 'school for ghosts' are embedded into realistic settings - in this case, the campaign to save Markham Street?

A: For me it was very important indeed. I had to be able to keep in touch with the real world in order to be able to do it at all. An absolutely solid and tangible setting, but with an unseen bit, an "other side" driving the story.


Q: There is lots of humour in Mountwood School, does that reflect your enjoyment in writing the story? Do children's stories need humour?

A: It certainly reflects my enjoyment in writing the story. And I was trying do my mother justice, and the humorous side of things was a big part of her writing.

Do children's stories need humour? Thats a very interesting question. I would say no, based on the thousands of wonderful tales that have come down to us over the centuries, almost none of which are funny at all.

What's funny about Cinderella (the real one, not the pantomime variety) or Bluebeard or Beauty and the Beast? In fact I would go so far as to say that anyone who assumes that children cannot be totally absorbed by a story unless it is jolly and full of amusing and quirky characters is doing them a serious injustice. Making a book funny is an authorial choice, not a necessity.


Q: Did anyone you know inspire the Great Hagges?!

A: Nobody I know personally. My mother did mention a well-known politician at some point, but I could not possibly comment.


Q: In the story, we are treated to a range of ghosts with a variety of ghostly characteristics, do you have a favourite among those you've created.

A: At the moment, I have to say, I'm rather attached to Angus Crawe. This might be because he is the only one who is not a bundle of neuroses. He seems to have his priorities sorted out, and meets a noble end, and likes dogs.


Q: Do you have a favourite moment or revelation in the story?

A: There is nothing that stands out, but a very important moment, for me at least, is when Daniel and Charlotte are at Mrs Wilder's house, and she persuades their parents to let them go to Mountwood. I think this is pivotal, and binds the other world to this one.


Q: Will there be more stories set at Mountwood School?

A: No I don't plan to write any more. I have of course the greatest respect for authors who have the energy and inspiration to maintain a set of characters and a milieu through book after book, but I don't think I'm one of them.

And it's particularly difficult, I think, with the invisible world, about which we in fact know very little... it's all speculation, is it not? Well, maybe not for Shamans or Saddhus, but someone like me just has to make it up. Whereas in our world, there is grass, and there are people and there are mechanical diggers and if you want to describe them properly you can go and look at them. And the Great Hagges do have a serious point to make... as far as funny spectres are concerned, enough is enough.


Q: Do you think you've ever seen a ghost? What is the spookiest place you've visited?

A: I have never seen a ghost. I have had one or two odd experiences, as, I suspect, have most of us. In Northern Scandinavia, where I live, there are still quite a lot of people who have seen the little grey gnome in the byre, and make sure he gets his bowl of gruel on Christmas Eve. But gnomes aren't ghosts, of course, just inhabitants.

As for spooky, there is a place a few miles from here where three parish boundaries meet. It used to be the place where the gallows stood...


Q: You work as a teacher, so when do you get to do your writing? Has being a teacher helped you to write for children and have you shared Mountwood School with your pupils?

A: I don't get to do my writing!! I force hours out of my life, like wringing blood out of a stone. All right, there are long summer holidays, but the summer here is so short that as soon as the snow melts you rush outside armed with various tools and don't go back in again until the first frost.

Spending my working days with children and young people is the single most important influence on my writing, my thinking and a lot of other stuff. But they are so honest that it is scary, they haven't grown up yet and learnt not to say what they think.

What if they don't like the book? I certainly haven't shared it with them, in spite of being bullied quite a lot. But now it is in print, at least in English, and I have presented them with a copy (what else can I do?) and await their judgement in fear and trembling.


Q: Where do you write?

A: I have a 1987 Camper, Karmann, built on a VW chassis. I love it dearly. It is in the garden, and my wife locks me out of the house and tells me when she is going to let me back in... usually a minimum of two hours. I sit in my camper and write. If I want a change of view, I can drive it somewhere else and sit there instead. I deliberately leave my fishing rod at home so that I won't be tempted.


Q: What are you working on now?

A: What I am trying to do now is organize a great sackful of stuff in my head into the story I want to write. This is the moment when I either make my own footprint, step out of my mother's shadow, and walk on... or not. I have started, anyway... I think.


Q: What's your favourite escape?

A: At last an easy question. Rucksack, tent, boots... the mountains of Northern Scandinavia. Step off the path, and into the wilderness.


Q: And finally, what are your top tips for young writers?

A: Start early and don't stop.
Do it instead of other stuff.
Write even when you don't know what to write. Paper, pen, (or keyboard)... If they are there, then your hand will move and make words.
It isn't great just because you wrote it. If you go back to it a couple of days later this will become obvious, and you will know how to change it.
Read. It is daunting that other people are so good at writing, but inspiring at the same time.
Writing is a skill like making furniture, or making music. You can become very good at it through hard work. If you love it, then it makes no difference that you are not Chippendale or Yehudi Menuhin; you are part of the community, and it is worth it.
It is better to write things down than make things up.

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