Today children’s author KATHY URBAN joins Ian Eagleton in The Reading Realm to talk about books, books and more books!

Before we settle down in The Reading Realm for a chat, what’s your drink and snack of choice?

One cappuccino, please (with oat milk if you have it). And a croissant.

Tell us about your book in three sentences and then three words!

Kind Little Hands – it’s my fourth book but the one I wrote when I decided I wanted to continue writing for children.

Kind Little Hands is a story about the positive actions anyone can take – no matter how big or small – to make a difference to the world around us. Here we meet Noah, a young boy who finds a tired bee on the streets of his hometown and, with the help of his grandpa, nurses her back to health. The experience leaves a lasting impression and inspires Noah to make his neighbourhood more pollinator-friendly.

Kindness. Nature. Action.

If one of your characters could come to dinner, who would you invite and what would you cook them? What do you think you’d talk about?

I love this question and I do love hanging out with my characters, so this isn’t too far fetched.

Ask my family and they will happily tell you about all the things I can do, as well  as that cooking isn’t really my forte. So my dinner guest may well end up with a cold platter of veggie sticks, crackers and cheese (lots of it!).

I think Lola might be quite happy to accept an invite. She’s the little toy bunny who inspired my first children’s book, Hop Lola Hop. Lola’s  got a very adventurous spirit so I imagine us chatting away about all the things we are yet to try, while chewing on a carrot stick.

What’s the funniest word you know that always makes you laugh?

Not really a word, but there’s a running joke in our family that I am only capable of making one good joke a year. And to be fair, it’s quite true. So whenever I do manage to pull one, it will make everyone laugh, and me the loudest.

What’s the silliest or strangest thing you’ve ever researched for a story?

I love researching for my stories and can get quite absorbed in it. There was quite a bit of research that went into Kind Little Hands, mainly because I didn’t’ want children going around picking up bees and drowning them in sugar water. So I was really trying to balance the story element with scientific accuracy. This actually proved quite useful beyond the book. I now share lots of the fascinating bee facts I learned with children during my school visits. Because no, not all bees sting and did you know that there are more than 20,000 types of bees in the world but only seven that are considered true honey makers! So what are all the other bees up to?

Do your characters ever surprise you?

Absolutely! They’re kids and kids are full of surprises. Getting to really know my characters is one of the best parts of writing stories for me, even before I start writing the manuscript.

I write picture books, so while they may seem to offer only limited space to share details about your characters, there’s a lot of hidden clues about them between the lines. I do spend a considerable amount of time getting to know my characters, creating their back story and learning what drives them. Their actions can sometimes appear very impulsive, but I also love seeing how they reflect on them and, in the end, arrive at the most endearing conclusions.

In my latest book, A Tree for Everyone, we see how a group of children manage to turn a horrible fallout into something positive by recognising their own mistakes. It’s one of the things I love most about writing for children: they are often wonderfully unfiltered and, at the same time, capable of so much wisdom. Saying sorry isn’t an easy thing, after all.

If your writing desk could speak, what would it say about you?

‘Spend more time with me, please!’

I do have a desk that I use for writing. More often than not, though, I tend to be quite flexible with my actual writing locations. I love sitting cross-legged on the floor writing. A lot of my day-to-day writing has to be squeezed in and around the family commitments, so realistically, the car seat while parked in the car park at my kids’ schools is probably where a lot of my actual writing happens these days.

That said, I’ve just secured a lovely little space in our house that I am hoping to turn into a pretty writing corner very soon.

Did you like reading when you were a child? If so, what?

Let me share some pics. Not really reading, but there’s some family pics of me creating and dressing up as a book character.

YES, genuinely! My parents are avid readers, and our main bookshelf happened to be right in front of the door to my room, so I literally had to walk ‘through a bookshelf’ to get to my bedroom! It’s a little anecdote I love sharing during my school visits.

This means I grew up reading quite a variety of books. I loved Pippi Longstocking (and pretty much anything by Astrid Lindgren), but I also enjoyed reading through my dad’s collection of GEO Magazines and his old children’s books, like Moby Dick or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I also loved being read to and would often memorise entire stories. I remember, when I was four, I would pretend to ‘read’ Heidi by Johanna Spyri. I didn’t know how to read the words, but I memorised them all – including the page turns!

What’s your favourite book that isn’t yours?

Children’s books – that’ll be a tie between Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and Krabat by Otfried Preußler

As an adult, I love anything by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. If I had to pick one, it’ll probably be The Shadow of the Wind because it was the first one I read.

What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhalwa – that book has stayed with me in so many ways.

What’s the funniest thing a child has said to you?

Apart from guessing my age?! A lot of children are fascinated by the fact that I don’t look at the pages when I read my  books aloud. I then explain that I don’t need to look at them – I wrote the words and of course, I do know them by heart!

If you weren’t an author, what would you be?

I actually worked as a journalist before I started writing for children. I loved my job and haven’t really ruled out going back to journalism one day. I love talking to people and getting completely absorbed in a topic. Plus, I do miss the newsroom buzz.

If I were to do something entirely different though, I might go and study entomology. I loved observing insects as a child (tiny creatures in general) and while they often receive way less attention than other species, understanding their contribution to the world’s health is crucial.

What BAD advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?

In 2026? Ask Chat GPT for advice.

SPEED ROUND:

Cake or biscuits? Cake!!! Especially if homemade!

Dinosaurs or unicorns? Dinosaurs all the way.

Pirates or astronauts? Pirates.

Museums or theme parks? Museums.

Cats or dogs? Dogs.

Summer or winter? Summer (spring, if there was the option).

Aliens or robots? Aliens.

THANK YOU Kathy for joining us in The Reading Realm today!