My Super Sister: Likely and unlikely origins

Author Gwyneth Rees talks to use about the origins of her new book My Super Sister and where the inspiration for a story about sisters with superpowers came from.

As usual I find it difficult to pin down all of the different things that came together to give me the idea for this book. The main themes - siblings, family, being different, self-expression, friendship - are certainly ones I have visited before and will do again. Family relationships are at the centre of most of the books I write and, if I think back, I always preferred reading books about families too.

I grew up pretty much as an only child (my half-sister wasn't born until I was 12) and I spent many childhood hours fantasising about what it would be like to have a sibling and in particular a sister to share things with. So that experience is definitely in the mix. Also an ingredient is the fact that I now have two little girls of my own (aged 4 and 2), which means I am currently watching their sister relationship develop from the very beginning.

But in addition to these personal factors I want to acknowledge two other early influences.

Firstly I have an enduring memory of being 4 years old and sitting in my infant classroom listening to My Naughty Little Sister being read aloud by our teacher. Dorothy Edwards' lovely stories, based on her memories of growing up with her younger sister, recreated a small and familiar world, instantly recognisable to any young child. The little sister of the title was mainly naughty because she was scared or bored or unable to control her temper and she was always very sorry afterwards. Just like any other child of that age I could so easily relate to that - and so clearly can my own daughter who loves the stories too.

Secondly, growing up in the 70s, I was a big fan of the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man - about an astronaut turned bionic man whose cybernetics give him superhuman abilities. An unlikely influence for a children's book in 2012 about two little girls with superpowers one might think? But there is a certain scene from one episode that I remember very clearly - almost as if I was storing it up at the time to use again 35 years later! The episode is one where the bionic man has to work with a telepathic teenager who confides in him the downside of having her particular 'gift'. The trouble is she can't help using her special power to check out whether people in her everyday life are telling her the truth or not. She frequently finds herself feeling furious with her boyfriend but unable to explain why because of course she's not allowed to tell anyone about her telepathy. The bionic man helpfully points out that he has the power to jump to the top of every multi-story building if he wants but unless there's an emergency he chooses to take the stairs. The lesson of course is that she always has a choice about whether to use her superpower or not, and that it's okay to put it aside in order to be like everybody else sometimes.

Of course one of the great things about superpowers (from a writer's point of view) is that they usually have to be kept secret. In children's books, secrets generally greatly add to the appeal but there is also the darker side to explore - the lengths to which parents will go to protect their children, how children can be asked to hold secrets from a very young age and the burden that places on them, how having to lie to friends, teachers and other people one might otherwise trust effects self-expression and the ability to make friends. In the story my narrator, Emma makes an unlikely friend when she eventually confides the truth - but is that worth the risk to her family?

Of course as a 4-year-old listening avidly to our teacher as she read aloud to us, and as an 8-year-old sitting glued to our black and white TV, I was conscious of nothing at the time other than the pure enjoyment and excitement of being lost in the grips of a good story. But I like to think that the budding writer in me was at work already, creaming off the juiciest bits of plot and mentally storing them away for (much) later use...