Transcript
Speaker: We are recording this podcast on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.
Speaker: We wish to pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging and extend our respects to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who may be listening.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Novel Feelings, where two psychologists take a deep dive into your favourite books.
Speaker: I'm Briscilla.
Speaker: And I'm Elise.
Speaker: And today we're really excited to present an interview with Sarah Shepherd, author of the new Penny Draws series.
Speaker: A little bit about Sarah.
Speaker: So Sarah Shepard graduated from NYU and has an MFA from Brooklyn College.
Speaker: She's the author of two New York Times bestselling series, Pretty Little Liars, which I'm sure you've all heard about, as well as The Lying Game and The Perfectionists.
Speaker: We're going to tell you about the first book in the Penny Draw series, which is Penny Draws, A Best Friend.
Speaker: Nobody said starting fifth grade would be easy.
Speaker: And Penny's anxiety means a million questions are always spinning through her thoughts.
Speaker: Luckily, she's got a lot to look forward to, like her favorite after school activity, art club, and seeing her best friend Violet again after spending the whole summer apart.
Speaker: The thing is, Violet has been acting weird since she got back.
Speaker: She never wants to hang out anymore, says art classes for babies, and spends all her time with Riley, the meanest girl in school.
Speaker: Did Penny do something wrong?
Speaker: And if she did, can she undo it?
Speaker: Plus the sequel to the book is out as well, which is Penny Draws a School Play, recently released, where Penny and her friends are starring in a school play, which has a whole other range of anxieties associated with it.
Speaker: And so this is going to be part of a broader Penny Draws series as well.
Speaker: So we're talking a little bit about the first two books in the series today.
Speaker: Yeah, and thank you to Text Publishing for linking us and Sarah together.
Speaker: Before we get started on our interview, here are our usual disclaimers.
Speaker: We are trained psychologists, but this podcast should not be taken as direct therapeutic advice.
Speaker: Please consult a professional for more specific and tailored advice.
Speaker: And as this is a children's book, we haven't split this interview into non-spoiler versus spoiler section like we normally do.
Speaker: But instead, we talk more about the writing process and the representation of anxiety in the books in general.
Speaker: And a couple of quick content notes.
Speaker: So today, some of the topics that come up include anxiety in children, school counseling and shifting friendships.
Speaker: All right, so let's get started with our interview with Sarah.
Speaker: Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today on your Friday night and our Saturday morning.
Speaker: How are you going?
Speaker: I am doing well.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: Our absolute pleasure.
Speaker: So we're really excited today to be talking a little bit more about the Penny series.
Speaker: So the Penny Draws series being a children's series is a little bit of a departure from the mystery and whodunit young adult books that you're most well known for.
Speaker: Can you tell us about what gave you the idea to write Penny's story?
Speaker: Well, yes, most of the time I am writing for young adults.
Speaker: But for a long time, I have wanted to write a sort of elementary age, middle grade novel.
Speaker: And they have kids who are around that age, and I really wanted to do something special for them and just couldn't come up with an idea and didn't want to force it.
Speaker: But then COVID happened, and my kids were both at home, and everybody was very anxious.
Speaker: And I remember being anxious as a kid and kind of started thinking about it.
Speaker: writing a book that had a bit to do with anxiety, but in a fun kind of way, in a light kind of way.
Speaker: And, you know, started playing around with that and drawings and, and the things that my kids were worried about and because their worries had sort of exploded since being in this lockdown and the news being everywhere and all that stuff.
Speaker: And it kind of, it kind of came out of that.
Speaker: And I didn't,
Speaker: you know, force the story.
Speaker: And I'm glad that I didn't try to come up with some sort of story before Penny was ready to come.
Speaker: But yeah, I would say it mostly came out of that.
Speaker: And it came out of the fact that I was an anxious kid as well.
Speaker: And very much like Penny when I was growing up, I had a lot of
Speaker: somewhat irrational things that I worried about and some very real things that I worried about.
Speaker: But I don't feel irrational at the time.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: They absolutely do not.
Speaker: The dog eating the TV remote and then worried that the remote has rearranged itself in his stomach and is going to take the pedals when he rolls over, like, was a total worry that I had as a kid.
Speaker: And, you know, and I see that in my kids too, that they worry about things that
Speaker: don't make a lot of sense, but make sense to them.
Speaker: And, you know, it's just about having a sense of control in a world that like was not making a lot of sense at the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm obviously not in primary school kid anymore, but it still, Penny's anxiety still feels really relatable.
Speaker: One of my irrational worries as a child, you know, we still had cassette tapes back then.
Speaker: And I thought every time I played it, the singer would have to sing it all over again.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, I'm tiring out the singer.
Speaker: That's so much work for that.
Speaker: It's kind of adorable.
Speaker: So in the book, Penny doesn't actually call it anxiety as she doesn't have that language yet, but it is clear from the writing that she has a tendency to ruminate and worry a lot.
Speaker: We would love to dive into this a little bit more.
Speaker: How did you approach writing about anxiety for a younger audience?
Speaker: So writing a book with mental health themes without it being heavy handed or being an issues book, so to speak?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, right.
Speaker: Penny, she does not call it anxiety.
Speaker: She just sort of calls it her worries.
Speaker: And in the same way, she speaks to a therapist at school, but she calls her therapist her feelings teacher because she has big feelings.
Speaker: And, you know, you need to talk about those big feelings.
Speaker: And I tried to, I just, I guess I thought about how
Speaker: I was trying to handle it with my own kids as far as not, you know, being super serious about, oh, this is anxiety and this is this, you have this condition and all those things.
Speaker: And sort of how I remember dealing with it when I was young, as far as like writing down all my lists of worries and
Speaker: But just making it kind of fun for kids to read about, but also relatable.
Speaker: But in the end, it is trying to normalize worries and anxieties, because it just seemed like every parent that I spoke with, their children were having things that they worried about and worried about kind of intensely in some cases.
Speaker: And I think kids feel...
Speaker: like they're a bit alone in feeling that way.
Speaker: And I, when I was young, I definitely felt like I was alone and the things that I worried about and having anxiety and, and it keeping me up at night and everybody else was just coasting through and just kind of figured it out.
Speaker: And that's something that I say, um, in my school presentations, because I go to a lot of schools and I ask kids, um, you know, who worries about things and,
Speaker: all the hands go up.
Speaker: You know, it's like, no, not a single hand is down.
Speaker: And, and, and, you know, and I say, do you sometimes feel like you're the only one that worries about things and all the hands go up.
Speaker: So it's kind of that it's sort of making it sort of normalizing it, but also making it a fun story so that kids don't feel like they're being taught a lesson or being, you know, in the, in the guidance counselor's office, like, you know, having a little, you know,
Speaker: learning something.
Speaker: It's more just making, this is a fun character, she's a lot like you, she's doing school stuff, but you know, you may find that you can relate to the way that she worries about things.
Speaker: I often, because I work with children as well, and often they might make comments about, you know, no one else feels like this or I feel really weird.
Speaker: And I'm on the other side thinking, you know, if you were the only one who had these feelings, I wouldn't be this busy.
Speaker: Why do I have so many referrals?
Speaker: Yeah, but it has been...
Speaker: I guess it's the combination of COVID and our increasing awareness about mental health means that a lot more children are, or a lot more parents are seeking help for their children's mental health.
Speaker: So it's both worrying that children are dealing with so much anxiety these days, but it's also a good sign that people are more willing to look for that help.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, the same with, with my kids.
Speaker: I mean, when I tried to get them set up with,
Speaker: a therapist outside school to talk about.
Speaker: Especially my younger son worried about a lot of, you know, didn't want to be left alone, just had a lot of anxiety that, you know, I thought it would be good for him to talk about somebody.
Speaker: There was a waiting list.
Speaker: I mean, it was very hard to find somebody and get an appointment.
Speaker: And luckily he did.
Speaker: And
Speaker: She was really helpful and it was great, but I think, um, I think you're right.
Speaker: I think a lot of parents are realizing that this is just a great thing they can do for their kids and a great resource and their kids get a lot of benefit from it.
Speaker: Do you think that kids understanding of anxiety has changed since you were a child yourself?
Speaker: Um, yeah, I think, I think kids have more language around it.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: You know, when I was young, I don't think I knew the word anxiety unless like my parents were joking about it for themselves or something.
Speaker: Cause my mom is also very anxious and you know, she would like my anxiety.
Speaker: And there was this old advertisement in the States that it was for this bath, these like bath salts or something.
Speaker: It was called Calgon.
Speaker: It was in the bed.
Speaker: It was like, oh, go on, take me away.
Speaker: I'm just going to get into the bath and all of my worries are going to melt away.
Speaker: And so they would say that a lot.
Speaker: But like, I didn't understand.
Speaker: I thought this was a big person problem, not a...
Speaker: a young person problem because what did we have to worry about?
Speaker: You know, our lives were easy and, you know, we just had to go to school and like didn't have to work and worry about things and whatever.
Speaker: So that's what it felt like to me growing up.
Speaker: I can't speak for like everybody, but that's what it felt like for me.
Speaker: But I think these days, I think we recognize that there are a lot of things that kids face and, you know,
Speaker: That's even something that I kind of tackled with Pretty Little Liars, just the internet and, you know, sort of the anonymous judgment that comes through text messages and social media and, you know, cyberbullying and all of that.
Speaker: I think that led to a whole new age of anxiousness and mental health issues that also we didn't have to deal with.
Speaker: So, like, you know, it's kind of a trade-off of...
Speaker: parents kind of not taking you seriously back then, but then again, we didn't, I think I would have had a really hard time with social media.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think there was a period when social media like appeared and, and parents weren't on top of it.
Speaker: And I think parents are now kind of starting to understand like, Oh, this is,
Speaker: Like we need to, this can be really damaging for kids.
Speaker: So yeah, it's, I think it's kind of, it can even out in a way, but there are a lot of things for kids to worry about these days for sure.
Speaker: yeah yeah i feel like i feel that there was almost a bit of a increase in literacy and understanding if i had to pinpoint it it's it's very difficult to sort of put in a year when people started to talk about it more but i know for me it wasn't until i was maybe in my late teens um sort of the late 2000s that i even heard terms like
Speaker: depression or anxiety for the first time and then sort of started to retrofit those can go oh that's what I was going through at certain time always um and then I feel like in the last 10 to 15 years or so we are talking about about it a lot more but there's still a lot of conversations that are not always that helpful when it comes to children's and young people's mental health so
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, again, we never expect everyone to be an expert on it, but it is interesting to witness just how times change and how we understand things and the language we put against certain experiences changes.
Speaker: So I feel like people talk a lot more about kids' anxiety and I don't really know if kids are actually more anxious than they used to be or if we're just better at recognising worries for, you know, what they are and better able to recognise and equip children to manage those.
Speaker: I'm trying to think about, you know, a lot of friends that I had when I was young and I think we were all really anxious, you know, for an order to press or I mean, I just I feel like I knew but but it just was not it was not talked about.
Speaker: It was not it was not treated.
Speaker: It was not recognized.
Speaker: And I had a friend when I was in high school.
Speaker: So this was in the 90s.
Speaker: who was diagnosed with ADHD, which is, you know, something that no one should be ashamed of or anything like, you know, but at the time it was this sort of shameful thing of like, I have to take this medication and, you know, it means that I, there's something wrong with me and very different things.
Speaker: way of talking about that now, but it's interesting to look back on that and think like, oh wow.
Speaker: You know, that's just a shame kind of that.
Speaker: And then there was the time before that where there was no diagnosis that, you know, there was no diagnosis.
Speaker: It's an ongoing, so just labeled as being naughty or disruptive.
Speaker: Yeah, right, right.
Speaker: Or head in the clouds or, you know, which, you know, they had no help.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Yeah, hopefully we're moving in the right direction.
Speaker: You've already mentioned a bit about how some of your own experiences with anxiety inspired Penny.
Speaker: How much of Penny is you and how much of Penny's personality is unique to her?
Speaker: Penny is somewhat unique to her, but they're definitely...
Speaker: is a lot of me and my family in Penny.
Speaker: And I can't say it's just me.
Speaker: I can say it's a little bit my mom.
Speaker: I can say it's a little bit my kids.
Speaker: But there's a lot of all of us that I bring into Penny.
Speaker: But there's also just a little bit of Penny, and especially how she grows and what she learns and all of those things that is unique to her because she definitely comes a long way.
Speaker: even in the first book, just kind of realizing and accepting herself and, you know, kind of going on a friendship journey.
Speaker: And yeah, she just, she learned a lot.
Speaker: And that was uniquely her.
Speaker: But there was definitely a lot of me and my kids in Penny, too.
Speaker: And you just touched on this as the, the focus, I guess, on the friendships changing throughout the books.
Speaker: So throughout the first two books in particular, the first book, Penny Draws Best Friend, Penny does go through a shift in friendships and ends up finding her people, I suppose, by the end of the first book.
Speaker: Can you talk a little, talk us through Penny's journey with her friendships and what that looked like?
Speaker: So Penny, I feel like this happens to a lot of
Speaker: kids, especially girls.
Speaker: I mean, I can only speak from my experience.
Speaker: But, you know, you have your, your really, your close friend or your close friend groups, but, you know, once you get a little bit older, things might start to shift and people don't want to be friends with people so much anymore.
Speaker: And the person who is left is kind of confused and as to why and thinks it's all their fault.
Speaker: And sometimes it's not
Speaker: has nothing to do with them.
Speaker: Um, and that's sort of the state Penny is left in.
Speaker: And she spends a lot of time trying to be something that she's not for this, this friend of hers.
Speaker: And she kind of learns that she doesn't have to do that.
Speaker: And that actually leads to problems sometimes, but, um, this definitely, you know, in talking to parents and dealing with my own kids, that's, that's something that I, and my own experience, um,
Speaker: It's something that I went through with friendships and, you know, it's hard.
Speaker: It's hard when friend groups change and hard when you kind of have to pick up the pieces and try to find new friends and start over.
Speaker: And I think that is a big source of anxiety and depression and all that in kids.
Speaker: It's uncertainty and all that because friends, especially as kids get older, are so important and sometimes more important than parents and families and whatever.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Yeah, I just feel like friendship was a really natural thing to talk about in the Penny Stories because we're all trying to figure out, you know, what makes a good friend, who are the right friends for us?
Speaker: Is this friend that I've had for a bunch of years, like still working for me?
Speaker: You know, and what and how to go through that.
Speaker: you know, a friendship breakup kind of, and, you know, this person wants to be friends with this other group and I'm not included and what that looks like.
Speaker: And luckily Penny has somebody she can talk to.
Speaker: Um, and I always say that to kids too, you know, find somebody that you can talk to, um, doesn't have to be your parents, um, but just somebody that you can, you know, get these feelings out.
Speaker: And luckily she has that person, but
Speaker: She still tries to figure it out on her own and doesn't make all the right choices always.
Speaker: But yeah, it's a hard thing.
Speaker: It's a hard thing.
Speaker: It seems like everybody has to go through.
Speaker: I feel like one thing that was standing out to me when you were talking there is the idea of friendship breakups.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: It just makes me think of how little conversation we have about friendship breakups versus relationship or romantic relationship breakups, despite how common they are and how impactful they can be.
Speaker: I know myself, I went through a pretty nasty, well, it felt nasty.
Speaker: It wasn't actually that dramatic, but friendship breakup when I started secondary school and I don't know what the US equivalent is, but our version of
Speaker: year seven middle school entering middle school that's right um and my best friend since I was three or four basically told me she didn't want to hang out with me anymore and that was pretty brutal I think one moment that got me in the feels in the first book was when Violet turns around and said well you worry too much so I don't want to be friends with you and I'm like oh no and
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And I think on the other side of it, I had a friend and she, we ended up becoming friends again, but like, um, when we were in, I don't know, ninth grade or something, um, I decided I didn't want to be friends with her.
Speaker: And, and that was, it was more because she, she was like possessive and, you know, there were, there were real reasons.
Speaker: You know, I had real reasons, but I didn't communicate it very well.
Speaker: I didn't say like, hey, like you kind of get really mad at me for reasons like I don't understand.
Speaker: So instead, I just stopped being friends with her.
Speaker: And I think that's the other problem is that we, you know, kids often don't have the language to like have these real conversations with them.
Speaker: their friends of saying like, listen, this hurts me.
Speaker: And, and I kind of tried to do that, um, in the penny books as well as, as try to have kids really kind of talk to each other.
Speaker: And hopefully that, you know, as a model for readers of like, you can, you can say this to your friend, like they might be kind of shocked that you're being honest with them, but you know,
Speaker: I know that led to me feeling really bad for just dropping this friend.
Speaker: And I think my friend was so confused because she didn't understand it.
Speaker: And, you know, I think, I think years later, I, we started talking again and I did kind of explain it and it was kind of like, Oh, but it would have, I, you know, maybe we would have been able to stay friends.
Speaker: Had I known to be honest or known how to,
Speaker: say those things or you know i feel like that's another another really scary territory is is having those hard conversations and i think a lot of adults don't have no i mean right right no we don't and with friends i mean yes you know there are definitely friendships that i've let go or that have people have let you know
Speaker: and come in and out of my life.
Speaker: And it's sort of like, wonder what happened there?
Speaker: And like, yeah, I think there's a difference between friendships that just sort of naturally drift apart and those where one person knows that something isn't working and something happens, but it's not quite an explicit, hey,
Speaker: you're not setting the right boundaries or you're not being a very good friend to me right at the moment.
Speaker: Like we don't often have those explicit conversations.
Speaker: There's a lot of resentment that can build up and we just don't know how to talk about it a lot of the time.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's kind of nice to see in the second book that there might be some hope for the friendship between Penny and Violet, even though it might not look exactly how it used to be, but, you know, there might be still something there.
Speaker: I don't want to give away too much, but I've actually written quite a few other Penny books because it was on such a tight schedule.
Speaker: There is more that they do work out a little bit more of their friendship.
Speaker: And again, it doesn't look the same, but Violet, it's sort of a to be continued.
Speaker: I'm very curious.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So we just pivoting back to the anxiety topic again, obviously throughout Penny's journey, we see a lot of her different experiences with anxiety and worrying.
Speaker: What would you like young readers or families to take away from the Penny series in terms of the depiction of anxiety?
Speaker: I'll say that they're not alone in feeling like this because I feel like
Speaker: when you have that sort of anxious feeling and everyone around you is playing or just talking and, you know, just going about their lives, you feel like it feels very isolating, but just to know that a lot of people go through this and you're not the only one and to take care of those feelings and recognize them and try to
Speaker: work through them.
Speaker: You know, I think something that I did when I was young that I didn't even know I was doing as sort of a self-care was I wrote a lot of, kept a lot of journals and I wrote down a lot of feelings and because I didn't see a therapist or anything like that.
Speaker: I mean, it just was not a thing that we did, people did.
Speaker: but I did keep a lot of journals.
Speaker: I love writing.
Speaker: I mean, that's mostly what I did is I would write creatively and write stories, whatever, but more as I got into middle school and high school, I would just write down thoughts and kind of frustrations and, you know, stuff that I was thinking.
Speaker: And I, and I think that really helped.
Speaker: Such a good way to process what you're feeling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, I mean, that's one suggestion that,
Speaker: for, but that doesn't work for everybody.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's kind of the thing that works for you to help get those feelings out and manage them and think about them.
Speaker: And, and also to talk to somebody too and get somebody that you trust.
Speaker: And, you know, I know once kids do get a little older, 12, you know, 11, 12, 13, you don't want to talk to your parents.
Speaker: I understand that.
Speaker: And, you know, I have a 12 year old now and I totally understand that he probably doesn't want to,
Speaker: tell me everything and that's like embarrassing.
Speaker: But if there is somebody that when things do feel, you know, like you really, you know, you really need to get something out of there is somebody that you, that you feel like you can go to, um, that person, you know, they're not going to be angry that they, that you came to them or they're, they're going to appreciate you getting that out and you'll feel better in the long run.
Speaker: So, so basically that, um,
Speaker: Yeah, just to kind of normalize anxiety that it's something that lots of people go through.
Speaker: Well, hopefully the books will find their ways to kids who need to hear that message.
Speaker: I hope so too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Speaking about talking to someone though, we, you know, being mental health professionals, particularly love Penny's relationship with the school counselor, who she calls, as we said before, the feelings teacher.
Speaker: And this feelings teacher helps Penny manage her anxiety, but definitely is not a miracle worker.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There was a panel, I think, on one of the pages where she asked, you know, what's been going on, Penny?
Speaker: And there was this image of her just like on the edge and then she just formatted everything out.
Speaker: It's everything!
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Yeah, I really love the little comics on the pages.
Speaker: All the illustrations have been so good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How did you approach writing The School Counselor or any of the other adults in the novel?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The school counselor, I kind of based, I certainly didn't base it on any school counselor that I had growing up.
Speaker: We didn't really have one.
Speaker: No fault to my schools.
Speaker: It just was not, you know, really something that we had.
Speaker: I guess I kind of based it on that.
Speaker: I also reached out to my kid's school counselor and had her read it and just say, is this the appropriate language?
Speaker: Is this the thing that, you know, is this something...
Speaker: the counselor would ask are these the right things you know does this make sense um so that's she was a huge resource and continues to be so you know and yeah she's she's not a miracle worker she can't solve all of penny's problems she can make suggestions and certainly is is this kind of oasis for penny to kind of like
Speaker: little safe haven, you know, for her to go to when she is feeling overwhelmed.
Speaker: And sometimes that's all Penny needs.
Speaker: And sometimes she feels like her feelings teacher doesn't give her good advice at all, you know, but you know, that isn't, it isn't for,
Speaker: the feelings teacher to tell her what to do.
Speaker: It's just for her to kind of help navigate her feelings.
Speaker: Um, and that kind of continues on in future books where, you know, she bounces her feelings off of the feelings teacher, but it's not like she turns around and tells Penny, okay, this is my prescription for you.
Speaker: You should go out and do this.
Speaker: I usually make suggestions, but like she doesn't,
Speaker: you know, it's not an assignment or anything like that.
Speaker: Which I feel is quite accurate to real life.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I think that the guidance that I got from my counselor is, you know, you just kind of have to navigate the feelings, but not like tell.
Speaker: And even my experience with therapists, like as much as you want to go in there, go into there for them to tell you, like, just tell me what to do.
Speaker: Like, that's not...
Speaker: That's their role.
Speaker: I don't know about you still, but I definitely had clients tell me, like, what would you do?
Speaker: Just tell me what to do and what to think.
Speaker: I'm like, that's actually not my role.
Speaker: That's not my job.
Speaker: Yeah, so there was that.
Speaker: But then, yeah, there are a lot of other fun adults in the book.
Speaker: Penny's parents.
Speaker: I hope that, you know, parents will read Penny's parents and kind of identify with them.
Speaker: sometimes feeling overwhelmed and frustrated themselves.
Speaker: And so they're often kind of a source of comedy in the books and, you know, they try to help, but again, like sometimes they're overbearing and, and, and, but they love, you know, they love their kids.
Speaker: They're trying their best.
Speaker: And, you know, there's some, there are some teachers that, um, especially in the second book, Penny gets a new teacher named Ms.
Speaker: Kettle who, um,
Speaker: I think she's in the second book, right?
Speaker: She has the puppet?
Speaker: Yes, she does.
Speaker: She has, like, kind of her puppet that she speaks through, and she had a little bit of anxiety as well, and we kind of find that out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're all kind of... Parents will see it, but I hope kids see it too, that, like, just because you're an adult doesn't mean you have it all figured out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I've really loved... I've loved writing about all of these characters.
Speaker: They've been so much fun, and I think
Speaker: part of the fun is drawing them.
Speaker: But I've just had a lot of fun writing these adult characters in the eyes of Penny, but also knowing that adults will read these characters and kind of understand like, oh, you know.
Speaker: Okay, I can see that.
Speaker: I can see that in me.
Speaker: It's definitely fun reading them as an adult.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just sort of seeing it through the child's eyes, but understanding what the adult is probably going through or thinking or feeling.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The second book, yeah, like the parents, they moved to a new house and the dad was all, you know, inspired to build this tree house and the mother's and his mom was just like, this is a disaster.
Speaker: Like, this is not going to go well.
Speaker: And it's just cute.
Speaker: You know, it's, they're parents as well.
Speaker: And yeah, it's just been fun to kind of bring in all the different, all these different, all these different adults in Penny's world.
Speaker: And they mean different things to her and they provide different things for her.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: When I was reading this first book, I remember messaging Elise because I worked out what the mystery was that Penny was worried about.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, I know what's going on.
Speaker: And then I was like, of course, I am an adult reading a book for children.
Speaker: I got there a lot faster than Penny did.
Speaker: As in what was happening with Penny's mom, right?
Speaker: Yes, that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I think some kids guess it too.
Speaker: I think it depends on what they've experienced in their own house.
Speaker: You know, it's like, Oh, I know what that's, you know, but some kids didn't get it into later.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, that was fun.
Speaker: Even that was fun for me as well as a reader.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not very good at guessing the conclusions to mysteries.
Speaker: So when I do get it correct, I feel like I need to register it in advance and then tell everybody that I correctly guessed it.
Speaker: So even in a children's book.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: So there are, of course, already two books out in the Penny series with a third on its way.
Speaker: Can you tell us a little bit about what to expect from Penny Draws a Secret Adventure?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Speaking of mysteries, it's a little bit of a mystery.
Speaker: Yeah, there is a, there is kind of a secret box that Penny finds in her attic because she has moved into a new house and the previous owners have left some things behind and she finds this box and inside the box is this sort of surprise that takes Penny and her friends on this like treasure hunt kind of.
Speaker: And so that's, that's been really fun.
Speaker: I mean, that kind of allowed me to have
Speaker: little bit of a mystery from my mystery writing days and you know to lay in some clues and and um yeah they they kind of go on this treasure hunt but it's a lot about um you know there's a lot about old friendships that they figure out and sort of their name penny finds a lot out a lot about her new neighborhood and her her community and sort of some people in her community and
Speaker: Um, she learns kind of not to judge people maybe by how they look on the outside.
Speaker: Um, and of course she has some friendship drama because, uh, she worries this time that, um, in the second book, she was worried that her new friend, Chloe, and her old, her, not her old friend, but her less new friend, Maria, would not get along and she didn't know how to merge the friend groups.
Speaker: And in this, in the next book, she's a little worried that
Speaker: Maria and Chloe are getting along a little too well and she doesn't want to be left behind because she's, you know, still pretty, pretty upset from what happened, you know, with Violet, um, leaving her behind.
Speaker: So then that, you know, it didn't happen that long ago.
Speaker: So it's a lot of that.
Speaker: It's, it was again, such a fun book to write and there's a lot of silliness in it.
Speaker: And, and yeah, just like a, they just go on this sort of fun adventure that takes them to a lot of different places and,
Speaker: meeting a lot of interesting people.
Speaker: Oh, lovely.
Speaker: You mentioned that there are quite a few Penny books written already.
Speaker: How many have you planned for the series?
Speaker: Yeah, give us the numbers.
Speaker: Yeah, so I have six planned.
Speaker: Well, I actually don't have the sixth book planned yet, but I have written up to the fifth book.
Speaker: In the fourth book, they go on a class trip, and in the fifth book, they start a sports team.
Speaker: They played pickleball.
Speaker: which is very popular here all of a sudden.
Speaker: Do you know what pickleball is?
Speaker: Is pickleball like a universal?
Speaker: I've heard of it, but not.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't think it's an Australian thing.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like tennis, except the paddles are, they're like played with paddles, like almost ping pong paddles kind of, but the ball is bigger and you kind of run around like tennis.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: So they start this team and, you know, it's a lot of...
Speaker: It's Penny's anxiety about sports, which I think a lot of kids will identify with because I think sports is a sore spot for a great thing for some kids.
Speaker: But I mean, there's always a lot of pressure around sports, no matter if you're good at it or if you're not so good at it.
Speaker: There's a lot of prop feelings.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No shortage of things to be worried about, is there?
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the class trip, the class trip one is very fun too.
Speaker: They go to New York, which I lived in New York for a long time.
Speaker: And so it was fun to draw some of those settings and make them go to some of those locations and
Speaker: It's been really fun.
Speaker: I think that brings us to the end of the interview.
Speaker: It's been really wonderful to hear a little bit more about the book and your intentions for the future.
Speaker: And thank you so much for joining us, Sarah.
Speaker: It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker: This was so nice.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I had a really nice time talking about Penny.
Speaker: that wraps us up for today thank you so much for listening remember to check out our share notes on our website for sarah's website social media and other information if you like us please leave us a review on apple podcast spotify or wherever you get your podcasts find us on novelfeelings.com or on instagram twitter the story graph and goodreads via novel underscore feelings
Speaker: You can also find my bookstagram at pavedwithbookswithinutress.
Speaker: And thank you to Sarah once again for the interview.
Speaker: It was really wonderful.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Take care, everyone.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
