Children's Book Week 2016 - Getting to Know Peter Worthington

Peter Worthington was a global partner of a consulting firm until his retirement in 2006. He has spent 30 years in Asia and first arrived in Johore Bahru, Malaysia in 1963 as a Lieutenant in the British Army. He worked in Hong Kong from 1983-1990 and spent 10 years in Indonesia with his young family before moving to Singapore. He currently calls Malaysia his home. A prolific writer, he has also written a three-book series of space adventures, a series of stories on the environment and a series of picture books for young children. 

Peter Worthington

1. What is the best day of your life?

I don’t know, it’s just great to be alive!

2. Why do you like writing children’s books?

Well, they are fun to write. You can let your imagination run wild. You are not constrained by facts. For instance, I have written a series about a young stegosaurus (dinosaur) and a young elephant who meet in the forbidden forest when they are hiding from T-Rex. The dinosaurs died out 60 million years before the first elephant appeared on earth. But that doesn't matter to a six year old.

Buster's Walkabout - Early Readers by Peter Worthington, illustrated by Nur Azmi Mokhtar

3. What are your top 3 tips on writing stories for children?

You can dream up an idea or see something that sparks an idea and then just let you imagination run wild. Let your characters take you where they want to go. This is what I do and in the end I often have enough material for more than one book which is great because children love series. They love spending their time with their favourite characters. With this in mind  I develop my characters and engage them in more and more adventures. But there is one important thing to remember. Children are very observant and they need their characters to be realistic and consistent. As you develop your series your characters will change as you grow to know them better.  It is very important, therefore,  that at the end of writing your series you go back through the earlier books to make sure your characters are realistic in a child’s mind.

4. Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.

Book 1 of Llewellyn the Ghost chapter book series by Peter Worthington

Book 2 of Llewellyn the Ghost chapter book series by Peter Worthington

I love ghost stories. I have loved them ever since I was a child growing up in a draughty old house in London. I was sure a friendly boy ghost visited my bedroom at night. Probably my imagination but that’s where Llewellyn, the boy ghost comes from combined with an old ruined castle I know in Wales. Llewellyn is a series of tales of how a 700 year old boy ghost teams up with an English boy and a very modern American girl as they set out to save the world from evil men who will stop at nothing until they rule the world.

5. What do you do when you are not writing children's books?

Life is great when I have a new idea for a children’s book and I can let my thoughts rip. But you can’t write all the time and I enjoy reading historical novels and scientific facts about rare animals and creatures that have long since disappeared like dinosaurs.

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Peter Worthington will be conducting two Storytime sessions at the upcoming Children's Book Week 2016 on Sunday, 29th May and Monday, 30th May at the Concourse, Bangsar Village II.

Admission is FREE for Storytime sessions - bring the kids for some storytelling fun!