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Non-fiction author David Long has a wonderful selection of titles covering a vast array of topics.  He very kindly wrote for us about Flight which is a beautifully illustrated (by Terry Po) collection of tales in aviation.

I read a lot of novels and short stories but, as the author of more than 60 titles for children and adults, my focus has always been on non-fiction. This seems natural after 25 years spent as a journalist and ghostwriter, and it gives me scope to spend time researching my subjects which is something I’ve always enjoyed as much as the process of actually writing a book at the end of it. I also believe passionately in the value of non-fiction having met so many early readers who, just like me at their age, enjoy learning about new subjects when they sit down with a book.

Naturally every book begins with an idea and in my own case the idea can grow out of a topic which is already familiar to me (I’m essentially an historian) or a brand new one which for whatever reason has sparked my interest for the very first time. I’m equally happy either way although my book, FLIGHT, definitely falls into the first category. I’ve had a fascination for manned flight – all of it, from the Montgolfiers to the moon landings  – since at least 1969 when, as a very young schoolboy, I watched as much of the Apollo missions as my early bedtime would allow.

Of course having all that stuff in my head meant I already had the bones of a book, its broad outline, long before I switched on my laptop. Certain landmark moments clearly had to be included – the Wright Brothers, obviously, and Neil Armstrong’s famously small step less than a lifetime later – but, as always happens, research throws up numerous other episodes which I found just as hard to resist.

I hadn’t known, for example, that the world’s first dogfight took place not on the Western Front but in the skies over Mexico. (No-one was killed or even injured because the pilots were old friends who aimed to miss after finding themselves on opposite sides in the civil war.) Bessie Coleman also deserved her chapter, a celebrated barnstormer in the 1920s who campaigned vigorously against American racial segregation after becoming the first black woman anywhere in the world to get a pilot’s licence. I was also keen to include the Nachthexen or ‘Night Witches’, a fearless Soviet-era squadron of female aviators at a time when no other country allowed women to fight on the front line. These extraordinary flyers, some only teenagers, became notorious for switching off their engines and gliding silently towards the invading German army in a series of dangerous but devastating night-time raids.

In truth the surprisingly short history of powered flight contains so many brilliant episodes of of this sort, and so many genuinely breath-taking achievements, that the book could have stretched easily to 2,000 pages instead of around 200. But just as every author has at some point to stop researching and start writing, illustrated children’s book authors know that eventually we have to stop writing so the manuscript can be handed to our talented collaborators.

The choice of illustrator is rarely mine, but I’m absolutely fine with that. In this regard I really don’t know what I like until I’m looking at it, and I recognise that the right illustrator can make a world of difference to the way the book is perceived and how well it sells. Of course my publishers ask me what I think before signing anyone up but I’ve never disagreed with any of their choices or come away thinking I’d rather the task had been given to somebody else.

I also try not to interfere because, without exception, I can see that the illustrators I’ve been lucky to work with know exactly what they’re doing. They need the freedom to do things their own way and not mine. That said, I’ll sometimes offer a few suggestions in advance, for example when a salient fact about a person or an episode isn’t included in the text. I also carefully check the final illustrations although it’s very rare for me to spot something which my editor hasn’t already pointed out. Mistakes (if you can call them that) are exceedingly rare.

Whoever the illustrator, I’m always trying to sneak some education into these books by disguising it as adventure. Usually I manage to sneak an awful lot in this way and it’s incredibly easy to do this because so much of history really is just a series of fantastic adventure. True stories can always hold their own against made up ones, and if a book of mine informs young readers as well as entertaining them then I know I’ve done my job. In this case I don’t expect to inspire everyone who reads this book to become a pilot or an astronaut but there are plenty of other ways for a young mind to reach for the sky and they all begin with knowledge.