Another Bone to Pick

Like Magic, Author Has a Surprise for Readers Who Are Wild About Charlie

This is an interview with a British author who has written some very popular books about a boy with magical powers who goes to school in a castle.

No, not that British author.

In fact, Jenny Nimmo, author of the Charlie Bone series, hasn't even read the books about that other magical boy, Harry what's-his-name. But her editors made her change some things in her stories because of similarities between the two.

"I had a maze in one of my books . . . and my editor called me up and said I had to take it out because there was a maze in one of the Harry Potter books. I was a bit put out because Charlie was certainly in my mind before Harry Potter."

Nimmo (rhymes with limo, she says) has just finished "Charlie Bone and the Hidden King," the last of the five-book series that takes Charlie, his magically talented schoolmates and some amazing animals in search of Charlie's father. Nimmo talked with KidsPost's Tracy Grant about how she came up with the idea for Charlie and whether this is really the end of his story.

Where did the idea for Charlie Bone come from?

"I was mulling writing a book for a long time. My own kids always wanted me to write about the boarding school I went to. It was a dark, dreadful place. I was only 6 when I was sent there. I don't think I was ready to write it until my own children went to college. . . . I wanted a hero who was not completely magical but had one talent. I have a dyslexic son, and I thought it was always important for him to have the sense of having a talent."

How did you come up with the talents the children have in the books?

"I always wanted to be able to talk to people in photographs, so that's where Charlie's talent comes from. . . . A child at a school I was visiting once said to me, 'Wouldn't it be great to bring storms?' So that's where Tancred's talent came from.

"People have brilliant talents, but not everyone uses them for good."

The names of your characters are so vivid -- Gabriel Silk, Lysander Sage, Billy Raven. Where do you get them?

"I love names. I keep a great black book of names. If I meet someone with a great name, I put it in my book. . . . I came up with Charlie's name because there was this great dog named Charlie in the town where I would go visit my mother [in a retirement home]. . . . He had a bone that he would keep picking up and dropping. It made us all laugh. I had been looking for my hero's name, and there it was: Charlie Bone."

Is this really the last Charlie Bone book?

"I had always intended there to be five. I knew exactly what would happen in the fifth book. [We could tell you what she said here, but we'd be giving away a BIG secret.] I was about halfway through the last book when my publisher called and said, 'Are you sure there aren't any more you want to write?'

"So I decided to write a trilogy. Charlie will be in it . . . but the characters of the 'bad children' are going to be explored a bit more. So you don't have to say goodbye to Charlie if you don't want to. But everything does get resolved [at the end of 'Hidden King']."