Jenny Valentine writes for a wide age range of readers with her new book Us in the Before and After sitting around the Key Stage 3 or 4 mark.
This book takes a deep look at friendship, tackling the complexities that develop as friendships and other relationships evolve.
Jenny kindly answered some questions for us about friendship, grief and her new book …
I like the way you have put that because friendship IS its own thing. That’s exactly what I wanted to celebrate. Romance comes and goes and it can be very complicated, but friendship is constant and simple.
When I write, it feels like I’m getting to know the characters as the book progresses rather than deciding who they are in advance.
I’m learning as I go along rather than knowing everything before I begin. I didn’t make Mab and Elk different on purpose, they turned out that way, but I think it’s proof of the bond between them that they are so close.
My friends have saved me in hard times. No question. There’s a moment in the book where Elk asks Mab, “What would I do without you?” and Mab says, “You’ll never have to know.”
In the acknowledgements, I thank my best friend for telling me exactly that.
The story is told through Elk’s eyes, so I really had to get inside her head. Everyone else is seen from her point of view. I had to be the most thorough with her and so I know her the best.
NOPE. It never does. I don’t have a sense of direction in writing or in life.
My friends were absolutely central to everything when I was young. It was the time when I listened to them before I listened to my family, when they were the authority figures for me. Young people know a lot about the intensity of friendship and this book is speaking to them about that.
Mab would be the fiction reader of the two of them. Elk is more into quantum mechanics and philosophy and Mab just doesn’t get any of that. I think she’d like it because it’s short.
Doing a proper friendship justice. I think I managed that.
Finishing it. Completing the circle. Getting out of the maze.
What I want as a writer is to make a connection. I would like readers to feel like they know these people, to feel close to them and carry them around for a while after the book is finished.
Isn’t it beautiful. Michelle Brackenborough is such a talented artist, and she captured the book’s beauty and loss perfectly.
I wasn’t involved in the design process. Michelle responded to a brief from my editor and she got it absolutely right.
This is a story about the delights of friendship, but it is also about grief and loss.
It’s my attempt to look at that difficult and inevitable subject and I hope it can be part of a bigger conversation. But have a box of tissues and be ready. It’s a lot.
A final word from us
There’s a lot in this book that might elicit rather deep conversations. There’s also lots of joy.
You can read a little bit about Us in the Before and After by clicking the image below – you’ll also find some of Jenny’s other titles too.
We’d like to thank Jenny for taking the time to answer our questions.
