The Boy, The Witch and The Queen of Scots

An Interview with Barbara Henderson

Part I

I always have two books on the go at any one time. I normally have an adult book and a children's book on the go.

My children's book at the moment is The Girl Who Lost Her Shadow by Emily Ilett. And this was sparked by it sitting on my desk for quite some time. I'm loving it. It's really poetic as well as an adventure story.

And I am delving into this rather hefty tomb on the Scottish Wars of Independence, which is a research effort. I'm trying to understand the details so that I can figure out whether I want to write about it or not, and this may or may not become my next adventure story.

Why do you write children’s historical fiction?

I had a bad accident when I was a child, and I remember being on the sofa, confined to that room, not able to see my friends. I wasn't able to speak. I had to have four operations to fix the damage. And the thing that got me through that were stories. I was in a lot of pain, and I really hated where I was. But in a story, I could go anywhere. And I just remember thinking that one day I could do that, make up these stories that other people would enjoy. And that means they wouldn't have to stay where they are. They could go wherever they wanted in a story. I would love to be the person who made that possible, because I was so grateful for those stories. These were books, but also plays that my sisters put on, through puppetry. For me it's always been primarily about young people. I'm a teacher, so I feel very in touch with my own inner child, I think. And I just love adventure stories for kids.

Why history? Well, history to me is the most exciting and fascinating country of all, because it's a little bit like what we have now but it’s also entirely foreign in some ways. But there are enough reference points for us to be able to make sense of it. And the absolutely brilliant advantage for young people's fiction set in the past is that you can get rid of all the things that would kill the story, like a mobile phone where you can just call for help when you need help. The stakes are high, continuously high. I really enjoy that about historical fiction.

How do you prepare to write historical fiction?

If I'm broadly interested in an era, a circumstance or a person, then I will borrow everything the library has on that. I will read and read until something catches my eye. And what I'm looking for is a hook for a child. I'm looking for a young person or some aspect of the story that would fascinate a young person and a believable reason to put a young person at the centre of the action.

The other thing I do, almost constantly, is visit heritage sites and museums – I look through everything with that lens of what would make a good adventure story, and ideally one that hasn't been done before. I'm looking for the gaps. It’s quite handy being a schoolteacher, because I know what projects and subjects people would cover in upper primary and lower secondary. These are the ages I write for.

There wasn't a proper adventure story set during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots. And yet I know that lots of primary schools cover Mary. And I found a hook that I could put my young person in. The Boy, The Witch and The Queen of Scots is the result of that.

When you write historical fiction, do you like to keep as close as possible to the history, or do you like to exert some degree of creative license?

There is usually a tiny bit of creative license, but my default is that I would choose to pick circumstances or times where we don't know everything because, if we know everything, to me there is no point in flying in the face of truth. I will not knowingly fly in the face of truth. In The Boy, The Witch and The Queen of Scots, there's one very, very small alteration to actual events that I've made. And that's simply the order of two meetings that were only a day apart anyway, so I swapped them over just because it made for a tidier storyline. I want to work with the truth as if the truth and historical events, historical people, dates and so on are pegs. So you're pegging down your washing and these are the pegs that have to be in place. But in between this washing I can flutter whichever way it goes in my imagination or the way that serves the story.

Was there anything in particular about this historical period, the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, that you thought would be really good for adventure?

Absolutely. Mary, Queen of Scots was actually a very lively and engaging person. When she first arrived back in Scotland she was 18. She would have been on the school sports team. She was really into riding, hunting, dancing. She was somebody who loved the great outdoors – actually, it was an unexpected thing. She was also really into music. So she was quite a likable, attractive and by all accounts very charming person. When she first came over from her exile in France and took up the reign of Scotland again, it felt right to me to throw a youngster into all of that.
I've got a falconer, a boy, at the centre of my story. Mary loved hunting with her merlins. She loved birds of prey in general, and she loved hunting with them – this was one of her favourite pastimes. And I felt that if there was going to be scheming and intrigue and spying at the court, then why not through the eyes of a young falconer boy? And it allowed me to research this very unusual perspective. It's fun to think of perspectives in books that you don't think you've seen a lot of, and I don't think I've seen a lot of narration from the point of view of a falconer, in an adventure story. So, yeah, it opens a whole new world to young readers.