Output details

Breathing Underwater

Breathing Underwater explores the impact of the death of a sibling on a teenage girl and the process of loss, grief and recovery, for the specific and demanding audience of teenage/ young adult readers, a developing genre in the field of children’s literature. Research questions included expressing these complex issues in forms appropriate for the target audience, while also extending the genre. Two time periods are covered in the present tense, in forms and language accessible for the audience. I also asked how liminal landscapes could be made to reflect the adolescent experience of being ‘on the edge’ and used descriptions of the landscape through the viewpoint of the teenage protagonist. Research included a long period of reading, research and training in counselling skills, as well as intensive research into the setting of St Agnes, Isles of Scilly. The novel was commissioned by Bloomsbury, the first of four novels for this specific age-group for this publisher. The book has been translated into Danish and Dutch and is available as an ebook, an Audio Book and a special large print edition. Author visits to schools in the UK ensured that the novel reached large audiences of young people who might not normally be readers.