Author Interview: Cathy Cassidy author of Shine On Daisy Star

Remember how obsessed I was with the illustrations in this book? Especially the cakes on page 12? Well, Cathy Cassidy kindly answered the following questions for me. Enjoy!(There may be a few spoilers, so if you like to be kept in the dark until you read a book, you may wish to give this a skip)

Also, apologies for the font changes. The questions are in bold - the last bold paragraph is part of the previous answer. The blog gremlims are back.

The characters in Daizy Star's debut story are ones which everyone can relate to. Daizy, her melodramatic sister Becca and their environmentally passionate father are my favourites. How did you come up with the concepts for their unique characters?

Daizy is based a little bit on me at that age... full of dreams and big ideas, but also hopelessly chaotic! Becca is quite like my own daughter Caitlin... in style, anyway! I loved the idea of a goody-two-shoes big sister morphing into scary goth overnight, and she is the character who gets to strop and stress in true teen-trauma style. She was a lot of fun to write! The dad character is based on my dad... I began writing the book just after he died, and though it was never meant to be so persona, it ended up being that way. My dad was very eccentric, and a big dreamer. He was much more capable than Daizy's dad, though... it was fun to make Daizy's dad so hopeless and comic!

My next question is in two parts. How did the idea of building a boat to sail around the world come about? This concept is one of the main story lines.

When I was about 7, my dad really did start building a boat to sail around the world! I went with him to choose a pine tree for the mast etc, and the boat took over the garage and stuck out into the back yard! It was pretty well built and all to his own design, but my mum refused to sail around the world... I got to use it to play in, though! It was fun to use this idea as a basis for the book, but to make it a crazy, comic idea that went horribly wrong. When i was 7, though, I'd have LOVED to sail around the world!!!

Besides this runs the story that Daizy made such a fool of herself at the swim club that she's too embarrassed to go back. Is there any specific reason for the focus about lying to cover something up? (I'm fond of messages to readers in books, and felt this was one of them).

I do think lots of kids lie to save face, avoid getting into trouble, pretend things aren't happening... or, like Daizy, because they are just plain scared. Lies obviously get you into a MAJOR tangle and that was a message I wanted to show through Daizy's experience. She learns to trust her friends and family, and to tell the truth and get the support she needs.

One part I especially like about the book is that it isn't centred around boys. Becca has a boyfriend, but she's older so that's understandable. Daizy isn't at all interested in boys. Why didn't you make her character like Willow and Beth's, who both are idolising over Ethan?

My older books do have a romantic thread, so I wanted to keep all of that firmly in the background in the Daizy series. It's aimed at slightly younger children, too, and at 10 lots of girls are NOT especially into boys anyway. One of Daizy's best friends, Murphy, is a boy... but no crushing going on! I do remember feeling exasperated and baffled at that age when some friends started getting mushy over boys... it was fun to share those feelings with Daizy! She's just disgusted that her friends have fallen for Ethan, the most annoying boy in the school!

Writing stories and art are second nature to you. How did you come about the decision to use your cute and funky illustrations with your books?

Shine On Daizy Star is the first of my books I have illustrated properly, cover included... and that was BRILLIANT. I have sneaked little vignetty drawings into some of the other books, but Daizy was younger and needed a slightly different look, so it was a great chance to get more involved! I was doing some rough sketches for Daizy to show whoever might illustrate it, and my publishers looked at the sketches and said... 'Um... any chance you could do it?' Yay!!!!

Final question. My favourite illustration are the cakes on page 12. I adore cake (baking and eating. My friends all really like me when the oven is on). You love cake. I don't need details about the wonders of cake. I would like to know what your favourite cake is, and in how many of your stories have you included cakes in.

My fave cake ever is called Sophie's Sin and is a very wicked chocolate and cream layer cake from a fab cafe called Kitty's Tearoom in New Galloway, near where I live. It has Amaretto liqueur in it too... just the most amazing cake in the universe. The cakes in Kitty's definitely inspired my new book Angel Cake (out July 2nd).

Cake in books... hmmm. Scarlett makes fairy cakes in SCARLETT... there's a cake baked by friends in GingerSnaps... and then Angel Cake is pretty full-on with the cake, I have to admit! I like to sneak cake recipes into newsletters, books, the website... cake is GOOD!