Polly Ho-Yen is adept at writing stories of very real children, with authentic and reassuring depictions of relationships with family and friends. Using experience from her years as a primary school teacher, she is able to ease the worries and fears that younger readers may have, through the magic of nature and the comfort of human relationships.

The third in her young fiction series published by Knights Of Media, The Night Forest "is a sensitive and beautifully written story to help children cope when their parents split up. Ziggy has never had any trouble getting to sleep at night, their bedtime routine with mum and dad – shower, toothbrushing, pyjamas with comets on, warmed on the radiator, bedtime story – makes sleep come quickly and easily. But the night their parents explain they are going to be living apart, everything changes. With its mix of real life and imaginary, almost magical worlds, all described through Ziggy’s eyes, this story is full of reassurance for any young child whose parents are separating, or indeed for anyone who is prone to worry."

Written for children growing in reading confidence and understanding, The Night Forest, and companion titles, The Girl Who Became a Fish and The Boy Who Grew a Tree, have short chapters and each are accompanied by softly emotive illustrations from Sojung Kim-McCarthy.

Polly joins us as our Author of the Month.

Q. The Night Forest, like The Boy Who Grew a Tree and The Girl Who Became a Fish, explores children’s unsettled feelings. How can fiction help children understand how they are feeling?

A. We are always making stories of our lives in our heads. It helps us to make sense of what is happening. When something unsettles us, the stories go into overdrive to help us through a difficult period. Fiction allows us to explore this more deeply but also gives us the ability to reflect back something we’ve not yet considered or an alternative path. I believe it equips us with the tools to know when we want to change our own story. 

I hope my books reflect back that when something difficult is happening, you will feel how you feel and it’ll be OK.

Q. While it’s very much set in the real world, there’s a hint of magic to The Night Forest story too. Why did you choose to do that and why is it important to the story?

Magic is never far away from you when you’re small. It feels important to honour that. Also, let’s face it, it is a lot of fun imagining a magical layer to our world. Perhaps I’ve never completely grown up from doing that. 

In storytelling, a magical element can slip so neatly into a metaphor for things which perhaps feel too hard to face, head on; it’s a powerful tool.

Q. Can you remember worries from your own childhood? Did that feed into the writing of these stories?

A. I remember some very specific worries - things like imagining someone sinister might be lurking in a shadowy car park, or if there’d be a consequence from my parents arguing, or swallowing a spider in my sleep. The answer to how they’ve affected my writing is that they have all fed into it and yet also, none of them have. 

What’s important are the feelings around the worries - that’s the lifeblood of my stories. 

Q. Ziggy learns a useful lesson from foxes in the Night Forest and the book closes with them and their family taking a trip to a local woodland. The magic of nature weaves through your books; what role do feel nature plays in your storytelling and more generally, to children?

I feel that being in nature and connecting to it opens children up to the wonder of being in the world, like nothing else. In my stories, I can’t help but place it centre stage when I want the main character to learn and evolve. Nature acts as a kind of dynamo for embracing change and living authentically. 

Q. You used to be a teacher. How has that experience fed into the writing of these books?

I started writing when I was a teacher and I don’t think that was, in any way, a coincidence. The years that I spent teaching are incredibly precious to me and in some ways, I’m still writing for those students who I wanted to see as heroes of stories, in books on the shelves. 

Q. Can you tell us about the way you work with your editor, Eishar Brar? And, for those who don’t know, can you explain the ethos of Knights Of books?

Working with my editor Eishar is both a joyful and straightforward process because we are absolutely united and aligned in bringing inclusive, engaging stories into the world. I’ll start by pitching an idea for a story and will write a synopsis. Eishar will give me some feedback and then I’ll start writing. I share my draft when I feel I’ve finished it to the best of my ability at that point. We usually do an overview edit and then a line edit. 

From when I very first met the team at Knights Of, I loved that their ethos of bringing underrepresented voices to the forefront of children’s publishing is at the foundation of all they do. They are led by an amazing group of women of colour and I couldn’t be more delighted to be writing stories for them.

Q. What does LoveReading4Kids mean to you?

LoveReading4Kids means to me that wonderful feeling when someone great, usually a dear pal, passes me a book they think I’d like to read, but times a million!

Read on for more on Polly's award-winning titles, written for a range of ages from picture book, to her dystopian debut Boy in the Tower.

@bookhorse | @_KnightsOf