Clonmel Book Thieves bookclub interview with Eva Ibbotson

June 29th, 2010 · No Comments

This year the Book Thieves decided to send an email to author Eva Ibbotson via her Bebo page. In our email we told her a little about our club and asked her some questions about her books and her influences. Eva very graciously answered our questions. You can read what she had to say below.
Dear Eva Ibbotson,
… Our two books for the month of February were ‘The Star of Kazan’ and ‘Journey to the River Sea’. They were both big hits with the club members and we had lots to discuss at our meeting.
We thought ‘Journey to the River Sea’ was a great adventure story and we really admired Maia for her bravery and honesty. The twins, though mean and nasty, made the story interesting. We all felt that Mr Carter was the biggest villain for being selfish and uncaring even towards his own family.
The images of Vienna in ‘The Star of Kazan’ were really magical and we all wanted to visit the Lipizzaner horses when we read about those beautiful animals. Is it still possible to see them today?
One of the topics which we discussed at length was your book titles. Some of our members felt the title ‘The Star of Kazan’ was a bit misleading because the ‘star’ only appears towards the end of the book and they had to wait too long for it!! Also we would have liked to know a bit more about the ‘star’. We then tried to think of alternative titles and realised just how difficult it is!!
We really enjoyed your books and look forward to reading more in the future.
Finally we would appreciate it if you could please answer some questions for our newsletter?
Thank you Eva and all the best with your future books.

Eva’s reply:
I am glad you enjoyed ‘The Star of Kazan’ and ‘Journey to the River Sea’.
The Lipizzaners are still there in Vienna.
How do you pick a title for your books? Is it difficult?
I agree with you about the title for ‘The Star of Kazan’ - I don’t think it fits the book. My original title was ‘The Emperor’s Horse’ but the editor changed it. Titles often get changed and authors have to fight quite hard to keep their original ones. Nowadays I could do this, but I was younger then.

Have you a favourite among the books you have written?
I don’t really have a favourite among my books any more than I have a favourite among
my children.

Have you ever started a book and then abandoned it?
Yes I have started several books and then abandoned them. Sometimes I pick them up
again later and finish them. ‘The Dragonfly Pool’ went through a number of phases through many years.

Has any one person inspired you?
My mother who was also a writer was an inspiration all my life.

Have you ever been to Ireland? If yes, where did you go and what did you think of it?
Yes, I have been to the west coast of Ireland and found it as beautiful as everybody said
it would be.
Best wishes, Eva Ibbotson.

The Book Invaders and Book Thieves newsletters containing this interview and lots more is available from Clonmel Library.