Interviewing Ian Eagleton about Violet’s Tempest
A few weeks ago, I had the absolute privilege of interviewing Ian Eagleton for the Babipur Book Club! It was a wonderful interview and it was fascinating to hear Ian give us a much more in depth look at the inspiration behind his children’s book, ‘Violet’s Tempest’.
I received a copy of ‘Violet’s Tempest’ back in summer and was instantly smitten by Clara Anganuzzi’s stunning illustrations on the cover and throughout the book. The story itself is equally as beautiful, and it really resonated with me as an adult!
About Violet’s Tempest
The book follows the story of Violet who has been cast as the role of Ariel in the school play. She is nervous about the performance, but the reader gets to watch as she steadily grows in confidence with the help of her family.
There’s wonderful representation throughout the whole book, which is the way any children’s book should be! Characters are all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities, Violet’s family isn’t a ‘nuclear’ family, and there is great LGBTQIA+ representation. Throughout the interview, Ian talked about how this representation was important to him, and I couldn’t agree more. I know that the children I taught when I was a primary school teacher would have absolutely loved this book, because there are characters that look just like them!
Although my twins are too little to understand the story just yet, I’ve been reading the story to them, and they are besotted with the illustrations on every page. I can’t wait until they start to get something from the message of the story, but until then we will continue to admire the gorgeous, detailed, and colourful spreads on every page!
If you would like to see the whole 40 minute interview, it can be found on the videos tab of the Babipur Instagram page, or you can click here. Babipur book club runs every week, and there are accompanying discussions on the ‘Babipur Hangout’ Facebook group where you can join in and discuss the children’s book of the week with other people that have read it. This is a really super resource for any parent, but also for teachers looking to diversify their classroom libraries. All of the books discussed are representative, which is what our classrooms need!