Bethany Loveridge is an author-illustrator who has always loved storytelling and the natural world. She has been a youth worker, a film and television teacher, a curriculum specialist and a museum nerd (not the official title). Today we’re chatting to Bethany about her novel Harper Wells: Renegade Timeline Officer.
From the publisher:
Harper Wells finally gets a bedroom of her own, away from her annoying big brother. But on the first night in her new bed, she wakes up in the past and meets a troubled young girl named Edie. Harper is thrown into a world of time-travelling spies as she risks her life to find a missing girl before time runs out.
The publisher provided a reading copy of this book.
If you found a way to time travel, which time in history would you choose to travel to?
If I found my own Wollemi Bed, I’d love to travel back in time to meet a thylacine (Tasmanian tiger). They think the thylacine went extinct in the 1930s, which was a miserable period called the Great Depression. So I would go back, smuggle a thylacine pup in my hoodie, and hightail it back to the present. Imagine how many species I could save!
What gave you the idea for a bed to be the device that enables Harper (Harrie) to travel through time?
The story idea started with a dream I had about the Wollemi Pine; a native Australian tree sometimes called the ‘dinosaur tree’ because it was thought to be extinct. So my time travelling ‘device’ needed to be made from a tree, and I thought a bed would be more exciting than a chair (though I do know a brilliant story involving a magical wooden wardrobe)! I also liked the idea of falling asleep and falling back in time.
Can you tell us a bit about why you chose Edie to be the first person from history that Harper is assigned to keep watch on?
Once I had dreamed up a time-travelling bed, it was time to choose an historical person for my main character to visit. I knew I wanted a female character from the past, someone brave and kind who could help Harrie develop the same attributes. I didn’t know much about Edith Cowan (except she was on our $50 banknote), so I had to research! Pretty soon, I knew Edie was the right character. I discovered she was passionate about improving children’s heath, the rights of women (she brought in an act that allowed women to be lawyers), and social welfare. Edith Cowan (nee Brown) had a rough childhood but an IMPRESSIVE impact. Even though lots of people gave her a hard time, she became the first female elected to an Australian parliament – how awesome is that?
Did you have any favourite time travel (or time slip) books you read when you were growing up?
Not really! When I was a kid, I liked reading fantasy stories best. Fantasy is still my favourite, but now I have read MANY time slip and time travel books, and I love almost too many to list! My favourites include Elsewhere Girls by Emily Gale and Nova Weetman, Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones, and the World Between Blinks stories by Amie Kaufman and Ryan Graudin (these aren’t strictly time slip, but feature a world of lost historical places and objects). Also, I have always enjoyed ‘portal fantasy’ books and television shows, and time travel is pretty similar – you just end up in another time rather than another universe.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
Harper Wells: Time Walker (book two in the trilogy) comes out in September! This time, we’ll meet Constance Stone, who was Australia’s first female medical doctor. I’m also over-the-moon excited for my new junior fiction (for readers 6–9) series that starts next month with Josie Mack and the MEGA Division. Illustrated by the delightful Jade Goodwin, it’s about a nine-year-old girl who joins an underground (literally and metaphorically) agency of talking animals. So. Much. Fun.
Harper Wells: Renegade Timeline Officer is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
AWESOME EXTRAS
Download the Teachers’ Notes for this book
Visit Bethany Loveridge’s website for more about her and her books
alphabetsoup.net.au 