Cassie McCullough

It's an incredibly dark but incredibly brilliant children's book.

It's three entwined narratives, but it's essentially about the Coram Hospital in London, which was this the Coram Hospital for foundlings, which is where orphaned children were sent.

And the Coram man in this in this novel, he actually kills the children and takes the profits.

So as I say, it's incredibly dark.

But, you know, there's.

Other stories about, you know, Toby, a boy who was stolen from a slave ship.

It just, you know, sitting there, I'd always find, you know, on the beanbag in the library, I'd always found history to kind of be this really dull thing that I was taught about in school.

And I didn't enjoy my classes and I didn't particularly get on with my teacher.

But then all of a sudden the past was opened up to me in this incredible and fascinating way.

And I suddenly felt history for the first time, that it wasn't this dry and dusty relic.

that it was something which had such a lasting impact on all of us where, you know, we can learn so much about the present through looking at the past.

You know, there were all of these overlapping voices kind of jostling to be heard, all of these stories which had been forgotten.

And that really sparked an interest in, you know, I thought maybe one day I would write a book of historical fiction.

And I suppose that's what I've done.

Oh, I mean, so, so many, too many to count.

I think actually the ones which, which did have the greatest impact on me were the books I read as a child.

And I think, you know, children's fiction, just there's so much power there because you read these books at such a formative time and they really influence the way that you see yourself and you see others place in the world, which is of course why representation is so important because, you know, that

So many of the books I read as a child were about girls and children like me.

But, you know, that's not good for me.

And that's not good for the girls who weren't like me.