SPARKY TO GET POETICAL

Ali to join the X Factor style judges panel for new BBC competition

JUNIOR SCHOOL GUEST STARS IN BASHERTAUR

SHIRLEY (SHAWLEY!) JUNIOR IS BACKDROP FOR MONSTER MAYHEM

RUNNING THE RISK TO GET THE AUDIO TREATMENT NEXT

Running The Risk on BBC Audio CD next

ANOTHER SERIES FOR OXFORD

New series on its way!

IN THE WOODS BEHIND BEN & RACHEL’S HOUSE, DEEP BELOW THE GROUND... THEY ARE SLEEPING...

When Ben and Rachel find Freddy and Polly, frozen for decades, deep inside an underground chamber, they defrost a mystery which reaches from 1956 to 2009, from their back garden to the nuclear wastelands of old Russia, from Spangles to Pot Noodle.

In a fast paced adventure with secret passages, missing scientists, international spies and Whoppers (with fries) Ben and Rachel must help Freddy and Polly to find their missing father and solve the riddle of why he left them…

…FROZEN IN TIME.

I SAY! JOLLY GOOD SHOW!

Ali Sparkes explains what the devil brought on all these high jinks…

I had an overdose of Enid Blyton as a child. It's true. And a jolly good thing too! Until I picked up Five Go To Smuggler's Top at the age of eight I wasn't a very good reader. By the time I'd put it down again, breathless with excitement, I was a bookworm.

I went on to read many more Famous Fives and then went on to her excellent, somewhat darker and more dangerous – Adventure series (Valley/Castle/Sea of Adventure etc).
Although I grew to love many other authors too, Enid woke me up – and she is certainly a big influence on my writing today.

One day I was pondering what the Famous Five – classic 1950s children – would have made of our world in the 21st Century. I've also always loved the idea of finding anything buried in the woods – ideally something really spooky. And so the story line for Frozen In Time began to grow.

When Oxford University Press said YES, I researched among people who would have been children in 1956 and carefully planned that my 50s characters - Freddy and Polly – would be 12 and 13 in 1956. Exactly the same age that my dad (Freddy) and my mum (Pauline – or Polly) were back then. I just made them brother and sister and then shamelessly used Mum and Dad for research whenever I needed them. Although Mum and Dad were less posh (not going to boarding school or having a scientist for a father) Freddy and Polly in the book are very much based on their characters (especially the roller skating!).

My Aunty Vera and her husband Bert were also very helpful, while listeners of BBC Radio Solent and the readers of the Southern Daily Echo emailed me with many memories of 1950s childhood, which gave me a fantastic authentic backdrop to Freddy and Polly's lives.

Other research included getting a copy of an original archived Radio Times sent to me (many thanks to the Hon Ralph Montagu at the BBC for that one!) for the exact week that I had set Freddy and Polly's last day in. And pawing through a fabulous collection of GIRL magazines (or ‘papers' as they were called at the time) was very funny, entertaining and informative. (Some mums or grandmums might like to know that you can get a hardback compilation!)

It was fascinating research – and the book itself should be historically accurate (although every author shudders at the danger of saying that!) with a few things that I bet you didn't know!

I can't wait until Frozen In Time comes out in January! There's going to be a lot of dressing up in 1950s gear, let me tell you. Keep an eye on the events page for news of the launch. And try the DO YOU BELONG IN THE 1950s? quiz by clicking here.