Author Q&A: Jennifer Bell chats 'Wonderscape'!

I’m so excited for today’s blog post, because it’s all about one of my favourite new middle grade books: Wonderscape by Jennifer Bell! Jennifer was kind enough to (virtually) sit down with me to chat about all things Wonderscape to celebrate Indie Bookshop Week.

You can get a signed bookplate with your purchase of Wonderscape from my local indie, Bassett Books. Just click here!

Disclaimer: I work with Bassett Books but do not make any money from the sales of Wonderscape - I just think you should all buy it because it’s super!

Hi Jennifer, and thank you so much for doing this Q&A! Wonderscape is about all things gaming. What drew you to writing a novel set in an in-reality game?

The simple answer is that I thought it would be fun! I love how tense, exciting and immersive video games are and I wanted to write a story that captured the same feelings. I imagined how gaming might evolve four hundred years from now. Virtual reality would be obsolete and players of the 25th century would be adventuring through in-reality games (imagine a cross between an escape room, a theme park and a video game) where everything happens for real around you. Wonderscape developed from there.

Creating all of the different game worlds within the novel must have been a complex process! How did you go about creating them, and making sure they all fit together?

The different game worlds in Wonderscape are all themed around real-life heroes from history. I read biographies and watched documentaries, searching for inspiration from the heroes’ own stories. Nobel-prize winner Wangari Maathai’s realm, for example, was inspired by a passage in her autobiography when she describes the first time she saw deforestation on a bus journey across Kenya. That same bus journey forms part of the challenge the children face in the Wonderscape. To make the story feel more adventurous, I made sure each realm was set within a different landscape so the characters felt like they were travelling far and wide.

Children's fiction continues to go from strength to strength. What is your favourite thing about writing for a middle grade audience?

That’s a difficult question to answer because I love so many things about writing for that age group. If I have to choose one, I’d say that middle-grade readers have the ability to suspend disbelief from the opening sentence of a book, which means you can throw them into the story head-first!

 And finally, as this goes live during Independent Bookshop Week, which section of a bookshop would we most likely find you in and why?

Back when I was a bookseller, you’d have been most likely to find me in the nursery section or by the Mr Men spinner, tidying up after little ones! Now I’m a customer, you’d still find me in the children’s section. Children’s books are my absolute favourite stories to read. They’re full of wisdom, magic and fun. Perhaps I’d be browsing the picture books….  Now I want to go book shopping!

Thanks so much for this, Jennifer!

Don’t forget to get hold of your copy of Wonderscape from your local indie (although I’d love it if you could support my local, Bassett Books!)