What is the name of the book and when was it published?
The Forgotten Map: Pie Rats Book 1. First Published April 2013
What’s the book’s first line?
This was a storm. It wasn’t a warm sun shower on a spring afternoon. It wasn’t the soft drizzle of winter rain. It was the drenching downpour of a tropical cyclone.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Whisker is a cyclone-surviving circus rat with a troublesome tail and a boat load of luck. When a strange ship pulls him out of the ocean, Whisker’s new life as a Pie Rat apprentice begins.
The first of a five book series, the Forgotten Map takes a look at the meaning and importance of family through the desperate eyes of a young rat who has lost everything.
After rumours spread about a mysterious map, the Pie Rats embark on a swashbuckling adventure where danger and humour intertwine in true pirate fashion.
The story is set aboard the good ship Apple Pie - a peculiar pastry ship where cannons shoot mouldy pies, coloured pencils are used as peg-legs and the champion swords-rat, Ruby, fights with two scarlet scissor swords.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Spending months away from my family on book tours each year prompted me to create a story about being separated by distance. A pirate ship seemed like the perfect setting for the adventure and I brought in some pre-made characters from one of my picture books to help me out. I even named my second daughter after one of the characters (and it wasn’t Rat Bait!)
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Whisker is nothing like the typical pirates of other adventures. He’s got a wayward tail that constantly gets him in trouble, a head filled with unorthodox solutions to get him out of trouble and a heart of gold that transforms the other characters around him. Despite what life throws at him, he refuses to give up. Pick your favourite down-and-out sports star on a comeback and you have Whisker.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
It’s got heart, it’s got brains and it’s got a bellyful of pie!