The Perfect Presents For ... All About Mia

As part of the All About Mia blog tour, I'm so pleased to welcome author, Lisa Williamson, onto the blog to tell us which what would be the perfect presents for the characters in her latest book, All About Mia. 

I love buying presents so when I was tasked with doing a spot of fantasy shopping for the characters in my latest novel All About Mia, I was raring to go. 

All About Mia tells the story of sixteen year-old Mia and her sisters. There may be a family resemblance but stuck in the middle of academically gifted Grace and talented swimmer Audrey, Mia constantly feels like the odd one out. As you might be able to tell from the gift selections below, here are three sisters with not a whole lot in common…

MIA

These trainers are totally bonkers but I have the feeling Mia might be just the girl to pull them off. They’re her in signature hot pink and would look amazing with bare legs, denim shorts, slogan t-shirt and slouchy bomber jacket: 

I like to think she’d team them with these socks:

Mia doesn’t apologise if she help it. This cap should help get the message across:

Mia isn’t much of a reader but I reckon she’d love Girl Up by Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates. Frank, funny and bold, this myth-busting manifesto has been described as ‘a bracing love letter to teenage girls’. I can picture Mia quoting it to the boys at school:

GRACE

Grace has dreamed of attending Cambridge University since she was tiny. Now she has a place to study Classics in the autumn, this official hoodie is a must-have:

Grace is incredibly neat and organised so a bullet journal would be right up her street. I imagine Grace’s would be utterly immaculate and have a very complicated colour-coding system:

Grace adores books and reading. With dominant notes of paper, vanilla and leather, this candle apparently captures the smell of aged books (a vital component of Grace’s ‘signature scent’ ­- ­­see page 1 of All About Mia!):

Grace is hugely ambitious and has her life carefully mapped out. She desperately wants to make a difference one day so I think What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20:

A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World by Tina Seelig should be top of her reading list. It covers the tricky transition from academic environment to professional world, complete with fascinating examples, inspiring advice and lots of humour. Grace’s copy would be highlighted and expertly annotated in no time:

AUDREY

Every morning Audrey gets up at the crack of dawn for swimming practice, throwing her dinosaur onesie over her swimsuit. I think it might just be time for a snazzy update:

Audrey is devoted to her guinea pig Beyoncé, so what better gift than this super cute cushion:

Audrey’s favourite film of all-time is Mary Poppins so I was really excited to find this drawstring bag for her keep her swimming gear in:

With school and her full-on swimming schedule, Audrey doesn’t get much time to read. Her dream is the 2020 Olympics so I reckon she’d perhaps carve out the time to read Relentless Spirit: The Unconventional Raising of a Champion, a memoir by US gold medalist Missy Franklin. Co-written with Missy’s parents, it describes the highs and lows of the life of a teenage athlete, something Audrey can definitely relate to: 

*****

All About Mia is published by David Fickling Books in February 2017

Summary

One family, three sisters.

GRACE, the oldest: straight-A student. 

AUDREY, the youngest: future Olympic swimming champion. 

And MIA, the mess in the middle. 

Mia is wild and daring, great with hair and selfies, and the undisputed leader of her friends - not attributes appreciated by her parents or teachers. 

When Grace makes a shock announcement, Mia hopes that her now-not-so-perfect sister will get into the trouble she deserves. 

But instead, it is Mia whose life spirals out of control - boozing, boys and bad behaviour - and she starts to realise that her attempts to make it All About Mia might put at risk the very things she loves the most.

 

To find out more about Lisa Williamson: 

Twitter / Website

To check out all the stops on the blog tour:

#YAShot Blog Tour 2016 - YA from my Youth - Lisa Williamson

In the run up to YA Shot in October, I am pleased to welcome author, Lisa Williamson onto the blog. 
Lisa wrote The Art of Being Normal which went on to be one of the biggest selling books of 2015. The Art Of Being Normal was also nominated and shortlisted for numerous awards, including the YA Prize and the Carnegie, before it went onto win the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in the Older Fiction category.

I'm putting this out there now, this is a very US-heavy list. As a teenager in the nineties with no access to the Internet, my reading choices were largely dictated by what I found in my local library or on the shelves of WHSmith, and for whatever reason these were mostly American titles. At the time this suited me just fine - I was obsessed with the USA. I had a map of the country on my wall, knew all the state capitals by heart and spent my spare time binge-watching video-taped episodes of Saved by the Bell and Out of This World. I was also capable of a pretty nifty American accent. Looking back though, there was often a disconnect between me and the characters in the books I was reading. I didn't necessarily know it at the time, but I would have killed to have more opportunities to read about a teenage experience a bit more like the one I was actually living. 

I don't think there were many bookish teenagers in the eighties or nineties who managed to resist the lure of Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, twin stars of the Sweet Valley High series. Growing up in suburban Nottingham, I had zero in common with their glamorous Californian lives filled with proms, handsome All-American boyfriends and trips to the mall (spiced up with the occasional kidnap attempt), but that didn't stop me from devouring every title I could get my hands on. I mostly relied on the library to indulge my passion but every so often splashed out on a copy to keep, building up a small but treasured collection of titles. I still have them all in a box at my parent's house, each of them slightly yellowed, the spines well and truly broken from dozens of re-reads over the years. They've dated terribly of course (just check out the eighties hair-dos on the covers) and the twins's behaviour is highly questionable throughout, but nostalgia ensures I will always have a place in my heart for the residents of Sweet Valley, California. 

Another series I adored was The Babysitter's Club. Again, my collection had loads of gaps, forcing me to re-read the titles I was lucky enough to own, over and over again, to the point I could probably recite entire passages by heart if the situation demanded it. The series charted the adventures of a group of babysitters living in the idyllic town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut. As a babysitter myself, I was massively jealous of their club and its vast array of clients. My favourite title were always the holiday specials when the babysitters would leave Stoneybrook and, for example, blag a cruise round the Bahamas or go to Disney World, always squeezing in a spot of babysitting along the way. I recently attended a YA Salon event where Ann. M. Martin, creator of the series, spoke about its inception about five feet away from me. It nearly blew my tiny mind. 

Confession. I liked this book so much I stole it from the school library. It's called After the Rain by Norma Fox Mazer and I must have read the kissing scene in it at least one hundred times. It's not even a very hot kissing scene, more sweet and a bit clumsy, but as such it seemed a lot more attainable than the sort of passionate clinches Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield got themselves into. Also, the love interest isn't a total hunk. He's quirky and a bit nerdy and Rachel (the protagonist) isn't even sure if she fancies him that much but somehow this sense of realism just really did it for me. I think the fact that Rachel is a bit of a worrier, just like I was as a teenager, also appealed. It's a quiet book where nothing much happens, in fact I can't even remember how it ends. If I'm totally honest, twenty years on, all I can really remember is the kissing bit.

Reading my first Judy Blume book was a very special experience. I remember getting to the end and thinking, 'finally, someone who gets it!' and making it my mission to read as many of her books as humanly possible. Judy writes kids and teenagers in such an honest, truthful way that, in my opinion anyway, only a few other authors have really come close to nailing. If I had to pick my absolute favourite of her titles, I'd have to go with Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. There's so much I love about this book - Sally's voice, the period detail (it's set in post-war Miami), the characters, the humour. I got my battered copy signed by Judy herself last year and breathlessly told her it was one of my favourite books in the world. I bet she hears that all the time but it totally made my week to be able to tell her in person. 

Does what I read as a teenager tie in with the sort of YA I write as a thirty-something adult? Most definitely. Although I loved the escapism of Sweet Valley, the reads that really got under my skin were the ones I could imagine slotting myself into in some way or another. There's something hugely powerful about being able to see yourself in a book, which is why I suspect I'll always be attracted to writing about the sorts of characters who typically don't get to be the star of the story. 

Me and Lucy Ivison cosplaying as Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield at last year's YALC

Thank you Lisa, for sharing all the books that got you through your teenage years. I love the cosplay photo! 

Summary

Two boys. Two secrets.

David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth - David wants to be a girl. 

On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal - to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan. 

When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…

To find out more about Lisa Williamson:

Website / Twitter / Instagram

Congratulations to all the #YAShot team for creating such a mega blog tour with so many amazing authors. 
Make sure you check out all the other stops on the #YAShot blog tour here.
And you can buy your #YAShot tickets here. 

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

This is the book I recommended for the Top Ten Books of 2015, which is posted on Tombola Times, the sponsors of ITV's Loose Women. Click here to read the rest of the list.
 

One afternoon, when I was eight years old, my class was told to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up.

To be published by David Fickling Books in January 2015

Pages - 368

Two boys. Two secrets.
David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth - David wants to be a girl.
On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal - to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan.
When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…

******

This book had a rather topical subject to deal with and I can only say that the author did it with dignity and sensitivity, creating a cracking yet heartfelt story. This is the first transgender story I’ve ever read and I really hope it won’t be the last. If I am honest, I’m hoping for a time when transgender characters can be a norm in fiction rather than star as the story itself.  With diversification in YA surging forward, I really am excited to see what the future holds for YA.

I am definitely on the train that can’t wait to see everyone open their arms wide to accept that transgender people are just like everyone else and have exactly the same rights to happiness and acceptance in society. I am one of those people applauding Brad and Angelina Pitt as they support their child’s desire to be a boy. I really don’t think this book could have come out at a better time.

So back to the story itself. I found it completely  gripping from the very start. You cannot help but want to hug and comfort David as he struggles with his ever changing body, developing into the man he doesn’t want to be. He is one of the lucky ones though, as his parents are quite liberal and open to his choices, which becomes apparent as the story unfolds. I adored the growing friendship between Leo and David, as they learnt to trust in each other. Leo came across as a wise and protective brother figure, as he helped David to adjust.  Friendships like that are to be embraced and worn with pride.

The book is told from a dual perspective and both characters tell their story in first person. It was fascinating to see the different lifestyles of both characters and how their surroundings and the people close to them affected their decisions and their mind-set.

There is humour, there is sadness, but they are weaved so beautifully that you are never down for long in the story. The ending would have made John Hughes proud and I bet if he was around, he would be desperate to make this book into a film. I swear I could hear the music playing at one point during the final chapters.

I think this book will be talked about widely within the YA market. It will be the transgender book on everyone’s lips. There will be other books to follow, of that I am certain; but in my mind, this will be the book that heralded the change in people’s perception of transgender children. I can’t wait to see teenagers reading this and loving it as much as I did.  A huge congratulations to Lisa Williamson for writing such an amazing book and not forgetting,  a round of applause to David Fickling Books for bringing this story into the world.