ANNA CIDDOR’S Moonboy is an exciting timeslip novel featuring a present-day girl hurtling back to the time of the 1969 moon landing. We caught up with the author to find out what drew her to the moon landing.
Moonboy takes us back to the year 1969 when the first astronauts landed on the moon. What made you want to write a story about time travel and the moon landing?
I am one of the lucky people who witnessed the Apollo 11 first moon landing as a child. At the time, I was an imaginative, anxious child, and I kept worrying about the things that might go wrong for the astronauts, and tried to picture what it would be like to experience what they were going through. In those days, horses and carts still clip-clopped down our suburban Melbourne street early in the morning, bringing our milk in glass bottles. We had no computer, no microwave oven and no mobile phones. The concept of three men travelling hundreds of thousands of miles to the moon, walking on it, and getting back to earth again, was terrifying and unbelievable.
When astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin were scheduled to take off from the moon again, I was filled with intense fear and suspense. At four in the morning, I lay in a darkened bedroom beside my sleeping sisters, a crackly transistor radio clutched to my ear, listening to the astronauts speak to Houston as they prepared to take off. Would the booster rockets work? Would they manage to meet up and dock with the command ship? Or would they be stranded in space forever?
I wanted modern kids to feel similar gripping emotions and I realised I could use time-slip to build suspense. In Moonboy, Letty slips back and forth between 1969 and now, changing history, and putting the Apollo 11 mission at risk…
Letty and Keith come from two totally different time periods. What are some key things Letty learns about the past?
I had such fun reliving my past and revealing all the odd things about the 1960s to Letty – and to readers. Can you imagine a world with no mobile phones where the only phone for the whole family is attached by a cord to the wall? What about people being allowed to smoke inside shops, or shops not being allowed to sell bread on Sundays? One of the most confusing things Letty has to try to decipher are the odd way we used to talk in those days. See if you can work out how any of these expressions might have been used:
She’s apples
Are you a few crumbs short of a sandwich?
Stiffen the wombats!
What do you hope readers will learn from Letty’s time traveling?
I hope readers will realise the scientific and technological miracles they enjoy every day of their lives, and join in the wonder and excitement of the new moon missions expected to take place in the next couple of years. One of the things Letty experiences in her time travels is meeting her grandfather as a boy. By learning about the passions he had as a child, she finds a way to break through his dementia. I hope readers will be able to use this technique too, if they ever meet someone with dementia.
What was the most fun part of writing a story involving time travel?
I’ve loved reading historical books and imagining myself into the past for as far back as I remember – but not everyone is like me! One of the most fun parts of writing a story involving time travel is being able to create a modern character and setting that anyone can relate to, and then letting this character, along with the reader, discover funny and intriguing aspects of the past.
How did you come up with the idea for how Keith and Letty first meet?
Some ideas just spring up out of nowhere – and they are the most exciting gifts for an author! As soon as I thought of Keith appearing in Letty’s bedroom complaining she was invading his room, I knew this would be a funny scene. Another light bulb moment was the idea of making Grampa suffer from dementia so that Letty’s trips to his past would have a special value.
Describe this book in three words.
Engaging emotional cliffhanger.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anna Ciddor has been fascinated by the past for as long as she can remember. Even as a child, she spent hours immersing herself in research, digging out the tiniest details so she could imagine being a person living in the olden days. As an adult she has successfully turned this passion into a career, but nowadays, she is just as likely to mine for details in her own childhood, creating stories out of the strange, intriguing and totally different world of the 1960s!
Anna’s work has won her many accolades, including the Nance Donkin Award for Children’s Literature, a grant from the Australia Council, Notable Book awards from the Children’s Book Council of Australia, and shortlistings for numerous other awards. Some of her best-loved books include Runestone, 52 Mondays and The Boy Who Stepped Through Time.
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