Q&A with Melinda Salisbury

This Dyslexia Awareness Week we have the fantastic Melinda Salisbury on the blog, answering our questions about her creepy series with Barrington Stoke Echostar.

The series is a great choice for key stage three and will suit both dyslexic/HiLo readers and those who enjoy a short sharp well put together set of stories.  Each book is full of particularly relevant themes like tech and social media, and how communities might engage with both.  There are four titles in the series and we’ve bundled them for you with a bit of extra discount during October!

The girls from Adelaide, Echostar and The Foundation are back and taking on the powers that be!  Has this series turned out how you thought it would when you began?

It’s much bigger than I thought! I never intended for it to be a proper series, it was supposed to be three separate stories, with Ruby and Freya only having a brief cameo in The Foundation. But the deeper I got into the writing of each book, the more I realised how much scope for expanding the world and drawing elements together there was. Suddenly I could see how it would all fit together and become one huge story and I couldn’t resist it! I was very cheeky and left the end of The Foundation open as a way of starting the conversation with my editor that I wanted to do one more. I feel very lucky that Barrington Stoke let me!

The big tech elements are super relevant, what do you hope young readers are taking from the books in this series?

The only thing I’d want them to take away is to be mindful of what they’re giving to technology. Companies and websites and apps make it so easy to take information from you and to lure you into taking part in trends and challenges and sign-ups for things, which are often then used to harvest data about you. And I think some people—not just young people, either—don’t see the harm in it, but your data is YOU. It’s your habits and your likes and the secret things you look up at night. It’s as you as your face and your voice—which are also being harvested! So much is being collected and monitored and used to target you, mostly with ads but sometimes more sinister things too. I want young people to approach tech by asking who is benefitting from them using it. And what is it costing the user? And thinking about whether it’s worth that price – don’t you think you’re worth more?

Which of Freya, Ruby or Ivy would you think is most likely to read these books, why?

Ruby would read them if she was auditioning to play a part in them. I think Freya is the most likely to read them because she’s curious and she likes to know things and to understand them. Ivy wouldn’t read them at all – books aren’t her thing! She likes to get her stories through games.

Friendship (or supposed friendship) is seen all through the series, what’s an indication of true friendship do you think?

I think an indication of true friendship is being listened to. Not listening to agree with someone, or fight their battles with/for them. Just to hear them out in good faith and allow them space to speak openly from their hearts. We’re losing the art of hearing each other – of really hearing what someone is saying, not just waiting for our turn to speak, or translating someone’s words through our own personal lenses and responding to that, instead of what was said. To be truly heard is to have a friend.

What’s the best part and the trickiest part about writing a story where the little guys or gals take on the really really big ones?

The best part is hopefully showing young people that the paths trodden by the generations before aren’t inevitable and they don’t have to accept them if those paths aren’t going to a good place anymore. The people most at the mercy of technology right now are the younger ones who’ve been born into a world that’s almost completely governed by it, leaving them little choice but to take part. I want young people to feel empowered to fight for the things they believe in – the bad guys will try to make you lose hope because it’s your best weapon against them. Don’t let them win! The trickiest part is making it feel possible, especially in a real world that is palpably more corrupt and controlled by bad actors, who aren’t even trying to hide what they’re doing anymore. We’re up against some real evil here and now and I worry it can make fictional evil feel a little tame.

If you are looking for an engaging series that will appeal to readers across the secondary spectrum, try Echostar!