Mum and Dad have gone off for one of their evening pub meals and Jay and I are lying on top of the boat on our stomachs with our legs crossed up in the air behind us and a can of shandy that Dad’s left us for a treat.
Jay’s got his earphones on and is nodding his head up and down to the music.
His hair is brown and curly and his face is glowing with health. I can see all the tiny freckles on his cheekbones and scattered across his nose.
Just for a moment the sun goes in and a dark cloud heavy with rain passes over the canal and causes me to shiver and look around for my jumper.
‘Here,’ says Jay, chucking it on top of me. ‘Don’t get cold, Liles.’
I look into his brown eyes and for a moment I’m scared.
‘Jay,’ I say. ‘Jay. You won’t ever leave me, will you? You’ll always be my big brother?’
Jay turns and stares into my eyes, so close that I can see the flecks of hazel and green in his pupils.
He grins and reaches out to pull my plaits.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah. I’ll always be here.’
The canal water laps at the edge of the boat and warm sun streams down on our backs.
In my sleep, the last little dregs of anger melt clean away.
Vanessa Curtis
spent the best part of a decade playing in very loud rock bands which is why she can’t remember much about her twenties. However, these days her brother plays in a band, so she can leave the wild partying to him and concentrate on writing books for children instead. She lives near Chichester Harbour with her husband and cat and still likes to crank up Planet Rock to full volume when there’s nobody in. Vanessa is the award-winning author of Zelah Green and Zelah Green: One More Little Problem and The Taming of Lilah May.
Vist Vanessa’s website at www.vanessacurtis.com
If you enjoyed
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By the award-winning author of
Zelah Green, Queen of Clean.
THE TAMING OF LILAH MAY
Vanessa Curtis
I’m Lilah May and I’m ANGRY. So angry that I’m about to be excluded from school, my parents can’t control me, and only one person in the world understands me. And that’s my best friend Bindi.
I haven’t always been this way. It all started with my brother Jay. And what no one realises is that it’s all my fault.
“A story told with sensitivity and humour.” Bookseller
“One you definitely need to order.” Cem’s Book Hideout
“I’d recommend The Taming of Lilah May for a lazy afternoon’s summer reading.” My Favourite Books
“This book affected me more than I thought it would. I’m looking forward to more from Lilah and Vanessa Curtis as she has a clever way of making her books a delightful mix of serious plots and edgy, contemporary dialogue. I always find myself wanting to read on!” Wondrous Reads
“Vanessa Curtis manages a fine balancing act in this contemporary, sensitively told tale of growing up. Lilah’s lively voice, with touches of humour and ready wit, introduces us to a sassy new heroine and one worthy of watching. Many readers will be keen to read the next installment of Lilah’s life in the forthcoming Lilah May’s Manic Days.” Armadillo
Why did you want to write these books about Lilah May?
I thought it would be interesting to explore what might happen to a close, loving family if one of their members went missing unexpectedly and how a teenage girl would cope with intense feelings of anger and guilt as a result of that disappearance. I also thought it might add some humour to have Lilah’s father be a modern-day lion tamer and her mother to be a rather miserable clown!
Where do your ideas come from?
A lot of my ideas come from watching documentaries on television or reading articles in newspapers. Of course not all of the ideas will make great books – there has to be something unusual or different about an idea to make me truly want to explore it further.
There are a lot of musical references in these books. Are you influenced by music? What's your favourite music/band?
I trained at music college to be a pianist before I became a writer but dropped out to join a couple of pop/rock bands which is why my twenties passed in a bit of a blur(!). I still write all my books to a chosen soundtrack on the computer – in fact I find it difficult to write fiction without listening to music! I used to be in a pop band and then a heavy metal band, but my favourite groups are an eclectic mix – so I like groups like Green Day and The Kaiser Chiefs, but also some old stuff from the 1980s like AC/DC and Whitesnake – I’m a bit of a metal-head, in fact, and listen to Planet Rock to make the cleaning less boring. In complete contrast to that I also enjoy listening to baroque, renaissance and classical music!
Did you always want to be a writer?
I’m not sure I always wanted to BE a writer, but I have always written. At school I used to do well at English Language and enjoy writing essays and stories. I was published in the school magazine a few times. I started really wanting to do writing as a job when I was in my teens and used to get paid to write pieces of journalism for magazines.
Were you influenced by what you read when you were younger?
To a certain extent, although the books that kids enjoy today are very different from the ones I enjoyed when I was younger – they had a sort of innocence which is less obvious today. Nowadays it’s more acceptable to explore various challenging issues in books for 10+ and in fact kids seem to really want to read about ‘gritty reality’ – which is handy, because that’s the sort of stuff I enjoy writing.
Do you have any advice to your readers who might want to become writers?
Read everything you can get your hands on! Reading is essential if you want to develop a sense of how to invent likeable, believable characters and come up with gripping storylines. I read a lot of books written for young teens.
What's the most difficult thing about writing for young adults?
Knowing that every single word has to count. Young adults are very honest readers and if they don’t like something, they’ll tell you!
What are the good and bad things about being a writer?
There aren’t too many bad things, luckily. There’s a certain amount of having to deal with rejection, having to rewrite parts of your books again and also an awful lot of Waiting. Most writers become experts at Waiting! But the good things, when they’re going well, are REALLY good. Imagine coming up with some characters, thinking of what might happen to them and then being able to put this all down on paper and see it published in a book which then sits on the shelf of your local bookshelf. That’s a true thrill. And one of the other really good things is reading what kids think about your books and sometimes getting to meet your readers in person to discuss what they like or even don’t like about your books. That’s the best thing about having written a book.
Lilah May's Manic Days Page 10