Primary Times - the definitive what’s on and where to go family guide of activities and events for children of primary school age. Things to do with your kids during the school holidays including arts and craft activities, music and theatre for children, parties, competitions, days out, and family attractions along with term time drama schools, dance classes, after school clubs and sports activities. Things to do at a place near you!
Young readers encouraged to research women explorers of the last 1200 years
Mick and Brita have pioneered Picture Book Non-Fiction since 1995. They have won the Smarties Silver Award, five English Association Awards and have been shortlisted twice for the Astrid Lindgren Prize. In 2020 they were jointly awarded the SLA/Hachette award for Outstanding Contribution to Information Books. They chatted with Primary Times about ‘Women Who Led The Way’ in celebration of International Women’s Day.
“After our last title for Otter Barry Books The History of Prehistory, (a picture book featuring time-travelling children who explore volcanoes, canoe through the Carboniferous swamps and ride on mammoths as they help us explain the pre-history of earth) we began to wonder what was next… We have a small house close to my family’s Swedish farm; and that is where the idea for this book began. In a dusty album of old photographs to be exact. These photographs had been taken by my great-great aunt Hedvig, our Bilbo Baggins ancestor who had travelled ‘there and back again’ to the other side of the world. She had emigrated alone as a girl to America in 1885 and only returned to Sweden in 1913 after a very successful career. She had owned a camera - something very unusual for a woman in the late 1800s and, among her photos, we found a small image of two women straddling a huge motorbike. After some research we realised one of them was was Hedvig’s friend Ester Blenda Nordström. In Sweden Ester is a folk-hero; a determined young journalist who had gone under cover as a farm-maid to expose the harsh working conditions of household servants in Sweden. This discovery and reading up on Ester’s adventurous life-example set Mick and I thinking. After a discussion with publisher Janetta Otter Barry, we discovered that she had received a request from primary teachers for a book about female explorers. To quote Janetta publication was a ‘no-brainer’. We began to draw up a list… it felt like we were assembling one of those teams of superheroes so beloved by our youngest son Charlie. But these were real people not fantasy characters. We had to select and edit, as we had a publisher-set limit on how many spreads we were allowed. We looked for diversity and also focused on individuals who could become stepping-stones to span the last thousand years. However not all our elite explorers were map-readers or travelled the world. We found examples of amazing women who explored the microscopic universe, the undersea world and even outer space.
We have a bright-as-a-button Anglo-American niece called Mae who lives in New York and wants to be a space explorer herself when she grows up (she is only 4 years-old just now). So of course Mae Jemison the US astronaut is her hero as well as her name-sake and this made researching Mae’s career all the more thrilling.
There are so many unique stories from the achievements of the partially sighted 18th century astronomer Caroline Herschel, the barn-storming escapades of Bessie Coleman and the bravery of Lee Miller. Lee was a fashion model and photo-journalist who followed the front line Allied troops in 1945. She famously mocked the defeated Nazi’s by posing in Hitler’s personal bathtub complete with her muddy army boots! Arunima Sinha’s story, moved us most. As a young woman she was selected for the Indian police force. But as she travelled by train for her interviews was attacked by thieves. Arunima defended herself, but in the struggle she was thrown off the train and her leg had to be amputated. Yet she didn’t give up! She went on to climb Mount Everest and become a great motivational speaker!
After careful research and using quotes and interviews Mick and I have ‘invited’ our selected explorers to tell their own stories and we feel this approach adds to the book’s humanity and diversity. It’s no coincidence our book is publishing on International Women’s Day I know my ancestor Hedvig would have loved this book and its unflinching message to children, adults and political leaders everywhere: ‘Girls should be able to do anything they want to do, wherever they live’! By the way - in case you wonder why my dear ancestor Hedvig isn’t in our book then I should explain that we have decided she should have a book all to herself one day… Surely a young woman who sailed alone to New York in the poorest class on a Swedish Steamer but returned thirty years later first class deserves her own book? Interested? Speak to our agent!” Brita March 2022