Why Care? 50: Murder Most Unladylike: Breaking Barriers in Children’s Literature with Robin Stevens
“I just had this storytelling impulse at an extremely young age. And I think I'm realising the truth of it now is that storytelling is how I make sense of the world, and it's how I think and process my emotions. I got a diagnosis of autism a couple years ago, and I think that that it literally, is how I process the world and how I make sense of things, It's how I understand people by pulling what I know into my head, putting it back out as a story, and using those stories to think through problems I'm having and things I don't understand. So the impulse has always been in me. In terms of children's books, I think writing children's books for the eight to 12 year old age group, that was really when I discovered stories that really, really moved me in a way that nothing quite had before.“
In this season finale of Why Care?, host Nadia Nagamootoo is joined by bestselling children’s author Robin Stevens, best known for the internationally renowned Murder Most Unladylike series, to explore how literature can shape young minds and create lasting change. Robin shares her journey as an author, the personal experiences that influence her writing, and how her neurodivergence, identity, and lived experiences have shaped the stories she tells. They discuss the importance of representation in children’s books, the impact of subtle acts of exclusion, and how stories can help young readers navigate diversity, identity, and belonging. This episode is an inspiring look at how books can spark meaningful conversations and challenge the status quo.
Key Takeaways
Children’s books have the power to shape young minds, foster empathy, and challenge stereotypes.
Diverse representation in literature helps young readers see themselves and others in a more inclusive way.
The power of storytelling can influence how children perceive identity, belonging, and fairness in the world around them.
Neurodivergence and lived experiences shape creative expression in profound ways.
Robin’s writing reflects her unique perspective as a neurodivergent person, using storytelling as a way to process emotions and understand human interactions.
By embracing her identity, Robin creates stories that not only entertain but also educate and inspire conversations around inclusion.
Highlights
Robin’s Path to Becoming a Writer – From storytelling as a child to becoming an internationally acclaimed author, Robin shares how her early experiences shaped her passion for writing.
Neurodivergence and Storytelling – Robin reflects on how her autism diagnosis has influenced her approach to writing, processing emotions, and understanding the world.
Diversity and Representation in Books – Robin discusses the importance of creating characters that reflect a wide range of backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences.
Challenging the British Boarding School Narrative – Robin’s books disrupt the overwhelmingly white, privileged image of boarding schools by introducing characters who mirror real-life diversity and challenge to fit in.
Raising Awareness of Subtle Acts of Exclusion – Robin highlights the importance of showcasing microaggressions in her stories to help young readers recognise and address them.
Bringing Queer Representation to Children’s Books – Robin shares her experience of writing LGBTQ+ characters, the challenges she faced, and the positive impact of queer representation in children’s literature.
Links
Robin Stevens’ Website & Books: https://robin-stevens.co.uk/all-books/
Avenir Consulting: https://linktr.ee/avenirconsultingservices
Transcript
Robin Stevens 00:00
You know, I had just never ever read any story about anyone who wasn't straight. And so, you know, growing up, turning into an author, I still had that feeling that you sort of weren't really allowed to do this, and especially not with kind of like the main character. And so to actually do that and write it down was something that like I had to get over a lot of sort of fear in myself, feeling like this is not something that's okay to put in a book for children. But it was something that like, I knew it about Daisy, I knew it was true. And I also knew that I wanted to put it in that it, even if I knew it, and I was telling fans that it was true, it didn't really matter until it was in the book for anyone to read. I want to say in a very clear way.
So you know, it was this moment of me being like, I can actually do this. This is okay. I'm allowed to do this. And this is important. And this is who she is. And also, I think that’s who she is, but it's her it's her best friend accepting her and they know, I still I love you. This is fine. You know, great. It was a very sort of emotional scene to write. I think it's very emotional scene to read. And it's everything that I kind of I wanted for me and my friends growing up, we just didn't have like every my generation just missed out on any queer role models, any understanding of what queerness was, any idea of it being positive and normal, and just sort of a thing that is part of human experience. And I think that as adults, we're all still deeply broken by that.
Nadia Nagamootoo 01:23
Hi, my name is Nadia Nagamootoo, business psychologist, coach, speaker and founder of Avenir Consulting, which creates organizational growth and success via inclusion and diversity. We've been discussing the benefits that diversity brings to companies bottom line performance for decades with more and more evidence. But there are so many questions organizations still have about how to achieve it. How do you create a culture where people feel valued for their uniqueness and the qualities they bring? I believe it's crucial to the future success and sustainability of every organization that they find the answer to this question to make sure that each employee is not only supported, but also appreciated. With this podcast, I aim to get some of the key challenges to creating inclusive workplaces out in the open and start uncovering the solutions to embracing a culture that cares for everyone. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most inspiring people in different countries and across industries who are pushing the boundaries on inclusion and diversity in the workplace from topics such as parenting in the workplace, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health and all things inclusion. I want to create a movement to change society through sharing life experiences and creating more empathy and connection. Why care? I believe that once we have organizations and societies that accept and value everyone for who they are, we become healthier, happier and better in our roles both inside and outside work. Hello and welcome to the season five finale of Why Care. My name is Nadia Nagamootoo and I am your host.
This is episode 50 and what a way to mark this milestone than with international award-winning and best-selling children's author Robin Stevens. Robin was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college. When she was 12, her father handed her a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and she realized that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up.
While she didn't become a super sleuth herself, she most certainly discovered a unique ability for creating powerful characters, gripping murder mystery storylines, and a talent for mind-blowing end-of-story twists in her Murder Most Unladylike series and more recently Ministry of Unladylike Activity series. To date, Robin has sold over three million books worldwide, which have been translated into multiple languages. In this episode, Robin shares her own experience of fitting in, being a non-UK-born LGBTQ plus and neurodivergent woman, and why it was important to her to create characters who aren't generally well represented in books.
We discuss the diversity and inclusion challenges and acts of exclusion that are woven throughout her books and the impact on young people when they read stories where the heroine and protagonist is like them. We also explore the emotional journey when one of her heroines comes out as queer and the response from her readers and their parents. Without doubt, Robin is a powerful voice for change, using her talent as an author to develop empathy, openness and acceptance of difference in the younger generation. This is an inspiring episode. Enjoy.
Robin Stevens, I am so, so excited. I don't think you can probably hear in my voice how excited I am. I'm clearly not containing the excitement to have you as the season five finale. Thank you so much for joining me.
Robin Stevens 04:55
Thank you for having me. I'm really delighted to be here.
Nadia Nagamootoo 04:57
I'm a huge fan of yours, as is my 10-year-old daughter. I first came across you and your amazing work because every evening my daughter reads to me one of your books, a chapter or two, obviously, because they're quite long. From the very first book, I have to say, from Murder Most Unladylike, the first chapter, you'd hooked me. Not in the same way, maybe, as your typical demographic young teen or from eight plus, I think you generally are favoured, but from a diversity, equity and inclusion specialist expertise, that ability to weave diversity and inclusion into your characters. Yeah, that first chapter hooked me. I was like, wow, this is special. You are doing something so special in your writing to open up new conversations and open up minds, young minds, in particular, to diversity, to this world of difference. For that, 100%, I thank you. So grateful to you.
Robin Stevens 06:16
Thank you so much
Nadia Nagamootoo 06:17
Thank you so much for your work. That was me proper fangirling. Now I'm going to pause and go to the beginning of the story, which is you, Robin, as a young, well, wannabe author, I guess. What age did you decide, actually, this is what I want to do with my life. I want to write. Why children's books and why murder mysteries for children?
Robin Stevens 06:37
I know all authors are not like this, but I knew I want to write from a really young age. I knew what writing and being an author was. I am from a family of kind of writers, creatives. My father wrote legal history, nonfiction books, you know, very dry academic terms, but he was writing those when I was very young. And some of my early memories are sitting and watching him write. And I, at that stage, obviously, was being read to a lot by my parents. They sort of love literature. And they gave me that love of books. And so I knew what books were and I knew what stories were. And I was like, I want to tell stories. And I talked pretty young, but quite early memory that my mother tells me that she has of me is me coming up to her with like a toothbrush and saying, Mama, I can tell stories with anything. I tell a story about this toothbrush. I'm going to tell you a story right now about this toothbrush. And I've told this story. So like that impulse was just in me from the beginning. Because I was watching my father write. I tried to write as well. And another very early memory is we went to a wedding and my mother just would keep me quiet, gave me a pen and was like, go draw in a book. But I wrote a story except that I couldn't write. I was like three. I scribbled because I saw my father scribbled when he wrote by hand. So I did that as well. And I presented my mom this book of scribbles. And I was like, look, it's my story. And she couldn't read it. And that was when I realized that you had to learn to write as a process before you could tell stories like in that way.
I just had this storytelling impulse, extremely young. And it's something that I think is something I always used to say in interviews. And I think I'm realising the truth of it now is that storytelling is how I make sense of the world.
And it's how I think and process my emotions. And I think that I got a diagnosis of autism a couple of years ago. And I think that is it really literally is how I process the world and how I make sense of things. That's how I understand people is by pulling what I know into my head and putting it back out as a story and using those stories to think through problems I'm having and things I don't understand. So it just the impulse has always been in me. And in terms of children's books, I think children's books for that sort of 8 to 12 year old age group, that was really when I discovered stories that really moved me in a way that nothing quite had before.
Like I'd always, of course, I'd always love stories, but the kind of stories like The Hobbit, I remember reading quite young and Chronicles of Narnia and the Dinowind Jones and Eva Ibbotson, all these books that were so like full of character and adventure and excitement and heroism. And they just really pulled me in and I felt so engaged with those worlds that had been built and really had the impulse that I want to do this myself. I want to create worlds and characters people will love this much. I remember being, I think about eight and sitting at my kitchen table, reading a Dinowind Jones book called Dog's Body. And the end of it is very sad. It's about the pole star who comes down to earth and is turned into a dog.
And the end of Dog's Body is sad. And I was sitting at the table, I was sobbing, I was weeping about this dog. And it just really struck me even at the time, I was like, I care so much about this fictional character. This character didn't exist before Dinowind Jones wrote this story, but I care so much that I'm sobbing. And that was something that really fascinated me and something that I really wanted to do myself. And so I think when I came to think about what kind of books I wanted to write, the idea of writing for that age group just felt so natural and so right. And in terms of the mystery plot, I've always loved mystery stories.
When my father was a huge murder mystery fan, we would watch Agatha Christie, Poirot together and Miss Marple and just all those kind of ITV murder mystery shows. And he loves classic crime novels. He bought me all these classic crime novels like Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and stuff and really got me hooked on that genre. And I think, again, I really was drawn to it because of the puzzle solving element of it, the kind of element of working out what happened, which is so exciting and so fun to work out, but also why it happened, like the motives of it, trying to understand people a bit more. And the feeling of being a detective, I think, is something that a lot of neurodivergent people really have.
And it's something I've always had, looking at other people around me and trying to understand what is going on with them in the same way that a detective would. So I think, again, it's just a genre that spoke to me, really made sense to me. And again, it was just something that I loved and I still love. And I kind of combined my two passions to create a children's story about murder, where the children were the detectives. So it turned out well, but that's where it all came from.
Nadia Nagamootoo 11:06
That's an understatement. It absolutely turned out more than well. I'm interested in you with your neurodivergence, with all the other sort of diversity characteristics that you hold. So your gender, your sexuality, your race, your nationality, all of the wonderful things that combine to make you. I'm interested in how that's influenced your career as an author. So have they influenced your writing, for example? Have there been any barriers because of some of your diversity characteristics and you wanting to be an author of children's books?
Robin Stevens 11:45
I mean, I think in terms of my writing, I think that in who I am, my background, my character, everything about me, it is the reason why I write the books that I do. The thing that I said about detective novels and neurodivergence, having that connection, I think is there. But just in terms of, you know, Hazel, one of my main characters, is a girl who's come from another country to the UK to go to this sort of posh English boarding school. And she doesn't feel like she fits in. And then she finds this friend, Daisy, who on the surface doesn't, they don't connect. They don't seem very similar, but they have a similar outlook on life, similar interests. And they make this kind of like familial connection. They're best friends, but they're more than that. They're each other's family. And I think that is so much about who I was and who I am. I came over from, not from Hong Kong, I came over from the US when I was a young child. I was three or four.
And I grew up in England, but feeling very much of an outsider in England, and feeling very disconnected culturally a lot of the time from England and Englishness or not really understanding it. I think my mother is American and she had a lot of cultural influence over me. I was about as American as anyone could be growing up in Oxford. So I often felt very fish out of water, very confused by Britishness and also trying to understand it, but also trying to parse why it left me feeling such an outsider. And I went to a British boarding school and, again, felt like an outsider, but made really strong connections with a lot of other pupils who also had some kind of characteristic that made them an outsider at that school.
I had a lot of friends who did come from Hong Kong who were Chinese. We all shared our feelings of cultural dislocation and confusion and just the difficulty of fitting in British culture because I think that Britishness, it's not a welcoming culture, I guess. It's very hard to prove your Britishness if you don't have all the characteristics that are assumed to be what a British person is. You're not really allowed in. And that is something that's very hard to parse and confusing and sad. And I think it's something that a lot of people have dealt with and are dealing with. And it's something that is what my books are about. Who gets to be British? Why? Like, how fair is that? What is Britishness? Is it even good to be British? Do we want to be British? Those are things I've been wrestling with like all my life. So I think that who I am in relation to where I live and it's just so important.
And then I also think that the friendship at the centre of the books, the connection between Daisy and Hazel, friendship has always been so important to me. And I have this group of friends or several groups of friends who are so close and I'm so connected to. And I think, again, that the more I learn about my neurodivergence, the connection I have with them is a group of neurodivergents all clinging together to move through the world and be able to get through the world and understand it. I know that's what I'm writing about. That's what my real life is. So I think that my books are a reflection of my real life experiences and my identity. And it is something that, because I've been writing for 10 years, I started Murdermaster and Ladylike when I was 22 in 2010. It wasn't published until 2014, but when I was 26. But I was so young when I started writing, so young when I got published. I think a lot of the stuff that I do in my books, I've only slowly understood why I do it and what it means and what I'm trying to do as I do it. And now I'm 36 now and I feel like I'm still having revelations about myself every week. I think that's the experience of growing older. But it is amazing to look back at my books and my writing and see it a bit more clearly and understand what is going on, especially with my diagnosis, really understand what I was doing and what is happening. And I think I'm very lucky to have that ability to just be able to look at stuff I've done and still feel proud of it, but understand it much more than I did at the beginning.
Nadia Nagamootoo 15:24
In a way, that whole writing process sounds almost quite therapeutic for you, that you're processing things, it's coming out in your writing and actually really helpful to look back at work you did 10 years ago, nine years ago and read it and go, aha, I get myself a little bit more now. So how fascinating then as you continue to write and continue to better learn and understand yourself to see how it comes out and how your writing is shaped even further through that understanding of you. I love that.
Robin Stevens 16:00
It's really special. It's very cool. And I think it's something again, that I feel lucky to be able to do. But it is funny looking back at my writing now and thinking, oh, it was all right there, you know, and I just didn't quite see it. But now I'm able to see more of it at least. Yeah.
Nadia Nagamootoo 16:13
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Let's talk about Hazel. Hazel Wong is this, was such an incredible character, very courageous, really reflective of what's going on in the world around her. She's very aware of what's going on. So she's Hong Kong born, as you mentioned earlier. She's in a boarding school in England. And what struck me initially, what really struck me was because she was bullied essentially. You never called it that. You never said, and she never labeled it as such. But that moment where Daisy and her fellow dorm mates got her to get into a suitcase to see if she would fit in, locked her and went off for tea. It left a lump in my throat.
I was like, oh my goodness. And she then looks at all of them and tries to figure out what can I do to fit in with this group? I was angry for her for being locked in a suitcase, yet she was just desperate to belong, desperate to fit in. And I was curious when you decided to write Hazel's character, write that particular scene, what was it that prompted you to bring in such cultural diversity and that feeling of being bullied, but just still wanting to be friends with the people who just bullied you?
Robin Stevens 18:35
I think it's an immensely painful scene. I think it's one of the saddest scenes in my books. And I think it's sort of the low point of Hazel's character in terms of kind of her self-worth and how she sees herself. And I think it's that desperation you have when you're younger, especially if there's a visible difference between you and your peers, you just want to fit in and you will do anything and you will just try so hard. You're like, what can I do to make myself good enough for these people to like me? What can I do to kind of hide my difference? What can I do to prove that I'm like you? And as an adult, as he makes me really mad, like as a parent, like furious, but like, of course, Hazel's like, this is fine. This is great.
I think it's something I wanted to show, like how you tie yourself in knots to be to be the person other people want you to be. And then I think the whole rest of the series is me being like, but she doesn't have to do this. Like, she doesn't have to tie herself in knots. She doesn't have to be like, lock herself in trunks. She is great on her own. And she's finally understanding that. And by the sort of the final book, I really have her understanding that she's powerful. She's always been the narrator of the stories. But I think in the first book, she's obsessed with this idea that she's not really the heroine, that Daisy is the heroine, because she looks like a heroine. She acts like a heroine. But of course, really, Daisy's acting pretty awful in that first book. She's at her low point as well. She's very, quite casually cruel and quite thoughtless. She hasn't really examined her place in the world. And Hazel, you know, I think there's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with me. I'm wrong. And Daisy's thing, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm perfect. And as the books go by, they switch. And by the end of the story, Daisy's realising, the series, Daisy realises she's not perfect. And Hazel realises she's pretty great. A lot of what I write, apart from murder, is all based on my own experiences, my friends' experiences. A lot of friends who come from different backgrounds, who aren't white, have all had some kind of deeply traumatic, deeply sad kind of experience.
Maybe not as bad as locked in a trunk, but some very dispiriting, upsetting experience like that, where they've been made to feel ashamed of who they are. At the beginning of the book, Hazel feels very ashamed of who she is and kind of just doesn't want to be who she is. And that's something I think is important to write about, because I think it's such a common experience. I think it's such a sad experience. And I think it's something that I think it's important to examine it in a story so you can deconstruct why it happens and think about how wrong it is. And a lot of people do have a really big reaction to that scene. Like, I have a lot of people who feel very upset by that scene. And I had a mother who once wrote to me being like, this is just terrible. You can't have it in the book. It's just, it's so awful. And I definitely, I really understand what she's saying.
As a parent, I would be just calling at the school screaming if that happened to my kid. But I think it does happen. And I think that it's something that we need to acknowledge happens. And we need to think about how to maybe not have it happen. But you know, at the same time, I was 26 when I wrote it in this sort of still remembering how searing it was to be a teenager and how awful things like that would happen. And I don't know if I would have written it quite in the same way if I was writing it now. But I think it is a very realistic scene. I think it's a scene that really does speak to a lot of people in positive and negative ways.
Nadia Nagamootoo 21:41
As hard as it is to read and for my daughter to be reading it to me, and it does happen. And for her, it's never happened to her. Hope it never happens to her. And yet, how important for her to understand that this stuff happens. Yeah. And that's not okay for me to open up a conversation with her and say, what was going on there? Why do you think those girls did that to her? What's going on for Hazel at this time to really develop some empathy and for her to then start recognizing some of these acts of exclusion, which might be very overt, like the one that we've just been speaking about, but actually could be really subtle. But she has a role to play in spotting it. If they're completely unaware as young children that this happens, how will they ever be alert to seeing it in the real world and then doing something about it?
Robin Stevens 22:35
Yeah, exactly.
Nadia Nagamootoo 22:37
So, for me, a really powerful point, very well made there, and a huge lesson. And actually talking about the more subtle acts of exclusion. Now, being a diversity, equity, inclusion practitioner, it's so threaded through your stories in such a sophisticated way. I remember Ilana reading to me Jolly Foul Play when there's the group of girls and the caretaker is looking at each of the girls in the eye. And when he turns to Hazel, and this is narrated by Hazel, she notices that he only looks at her ear, right? And other acts of exclusion in Mistletoe and Murder when the girl is writing essays on behalf of the boys, and it says that her essays are getting better marks when it's under their name compared to when it's under her name.
So, she's getting lower grades just because she's a girl. Like, I mean, they're just two that I've just plucked out from memory, right? But how powerful to notice how the world works. And you bring it out in your story so well and so cleverly. Like, what do you hope that young people will learn from Hazel's experiences?
Robin Stevens 24:01
I think that there is still this feeling that kind of racism and sexism and homophobia and stuff, that they have to be overt, that it has to be somebody who intends it. You can be a racist or not a racist. It's like having blue eyes or something. It's a characteristic in you. But I think that it's so much more subtle than that. And it's so much more all-encompassing than that. Anyone is capable of making an incorrect assumption or saying something that wounds and is terrible or doing something that is racist or sexist. Those people marking the essays, they're looking at the essays, well, this is a smart boy, I'll give him an A, and this girl, I don't know what she's doing here, give her a B. And that happens in real life so much.
And people have these prejudices that they feel uncomfortable around different races, and they've never examined them, and they don't know how to behave. And so they do something like hurtful and offensive and awful, like what the caretaker does. And I think it's just, without trying to be deeply depressing about it, because it is depressing when you think about it, but just trying to show a world where anyone is capable of doing an act unconsciously that can be hurtful and cruel and wrong, and can have a really negative effect on a person, whether or not you meant it to. And that is something that I think is really important, that the effects of your actions have nothing to do with your intentions. There's no such thing as people who are evil. Everybody thinks they're doing the best they can. It's just that a lot of the time, they're not, or their best is not good enough. And so I want to show a world where that is true, that everyone's trying, but they do it wrong, and they don't do it well enough. And that it's so important to try and to think and to, when you do something wrong, you reflect on it and do better.
And I think that's how you change yourself. And once you've changed yourself, I think that you can start trying to affect more of the world. But if you are just totally unexamined, as Daisy is at the beginning of the series, just doing stuff and not really thinking how it's going to be perceived and what its effect is going to be, then you do hurt people by mistake. And that is a problem. So Jane, I want to portray a nuanced world where kind of everyone is capable of getting it wrong. Also, everyone can get it right doesn't really exist, but I think everyone can try to do better. I don't know, it might be me just being really hopeful, but that's the dream.
Nadia Nagamootoo 26:17
Absolutely, right. And why not have a moonshot and want for everyone to recognize that it takes work. We're not just automatically, if we see the world purely through our own lens or what we've been taught, or ultimately my book is talking about the discomfort that people feel when they're unsure what to do, or they don't necessarily believe that Hazel, for example, should be in England, studying in England. There could be so many beliefs that they would have to, for example, Jones, the caretaker, what's his discomfort? It's clear he's holding some discomfort, otherwise he wouldn't just be looking at her ear. What is going on for him?
And to examine that more deeply to have that. But of course, people might have an uncomfortable feeling, but they don't always take the time to reflect and better understand where it's coming from. And so your writing, I think helps to open up that. I did ask my daughter, I did say to her, what do you think is going on for him? Why is he only looking at her ear? Because if she can understand and empathize with what's going on for him, then maybe she's got a better connection if and when it might happen to her when she holds a discomfort. What is going on for her at that point? So I hope that young people do take a lot from Hazel's experience and all of the other differences that you bring through your characters. I mean, let's talk about Daisy, because Daisy's special, right? She's quite a character at the very beginning. She is pretty blunt. She's very, well, I suppose, arrogant in many ways. She totally believes she's right and she's the best and doesn't doubt herself once. And she holds a lot of white privilege, in the sense of, in comparison to her best mate, Hazel, she has some privilege over Hazel. And I was curious, as an author, as the writer, identifying as white, how was that, as you were writing, that privilege that Daisy holds? Is the only thing that you had to work through yourself as you wrote it?
Robin Stevens 28:33
Something I found I wanted to do throughout the book is Daisy expanding her worldview. You know, I think meeting Hazel starts the expansion and she certainly grows and changes a lot. And I think that writing her, I was probably sort of looking back a little bit at my own sort of teenage years and the moments when something hit me and I was like, wow, the world is just not what I thought it is. As you get older, you hopefully start seeing that you are not quite the centre of the universe. There's one of the books, A Spoonful of Murder, they go back to Hazel's family home in Hong Kong and Daisy gets off the ship and is just immediately just so uncomfortable because it's too hot for her. It's like she's been in a climate that all the other books have been in a climate that she feels really at home in.
You know, she knows most of the books take place in Britain. She knows the climate, she knows the customs, she knows everything about it. So she feels very centred in her world. She's never really had to think, what if I wasn't the centre of the universe? Then she turns up in Hong Kong and she can't speak the language. She doesn't know what's going on. And Hazel becomes the main character. Hazel is the daughter of the important person and Hazel's family are very rich. And Hazel's very rich and very privileged in Hong Kong. And she's also quite famous. A lot of the people that they meet have heard of Hazel because her father's talked about her. So everyone's like, Hazel! Wow! Until Hazel becomes the main character and Daisy is forced to be like, I'm the sidekick now. I'm not the main character. And I think that kind of move is, I don't think I ever had that moment quite as strongly. But realising as I got older, that I just wasn't the centre of the universe. I think part of me that sort of happened because I was, I think, one of the earliest of internet native generations. And I spent a lot of my teenage years on the internet. And I remember just realising that the making jokes that would have totally flown in my own friend group in my own school and making jokes on the internet. And people would be like, you can't say that because the butt of that joke is me. And me being like, oh my gosh, you're right. And suddenly reframing how I saw the world and thinking, not the only voice here. Everybody's voice is just as loud. Everybody's voice is just as important. I think when you are a teenager, especially if you are at the cultural centre where you live, if you are like Daisy, if you're white in England, I think it's very easy to feel like that you are the main character. And I think it's really helpful and important to be sort of like, hold on, I'm not always.
And I think it's a useful moment. I think it's very easy to be self-centred as a teenager. And I think it's useful to have moments when you can't be and you realise that you shouldn't be. And I think Hazel's entire life in England is feeling like she's not the centre of the universe and Daisy's always is. So that was, I think, Death and Spotlight was a really important book for me to flip that and make them both think about power differentials a bit. But, you know, certainly I think with writing the series, I think I have learned so much. I have thought so much. I've had to do a lot of thinking and a lot of kind of work on the way I perceive the world and the way I'm writing about the world. And I think I wrote about Hazel because I had a lot of my cohort were from Hong Kong, and were Chinese. And so that felt very sort of natural and normal for me when I was writing a school story.
I was like, well, there has to be a Chinese kids. There have to be some non-white kids. But I also knew when I was writing, that the sort of the British boarding school story was just overwhelmingly white. And so the act of making the school look like my school really did was unusual. And that kind of bothered me. It was part of why I wrote Hazel, because I was sort of like, it is not right that boarding schools in stories don't look like they do in my real life, in real life English boarding schools that I'm at. And I want to redress that balance a little bit. I think I did it quite, not thoughtlessly, because I obviously, I was, I really was thinking. I had that very thought process in my head, but it was, I hadn't been able to see the effect that doing that would have on readers because I didn't have any readers. And once the book was published and I started meeting kids who were like, I am Hazel. You have written about someone like me and seeing that and thinking, oh, that is actually a really important thing, not just to have done, but to have gotten right and feeling the kind of, not, I guess the fear, the sort of importance of getting it right. And then I introduced a character called George in the fifth book, Mistletoe and Murder, and George is British Indian. And he was a character that I was like, okay, I need to do research on this character and to make sure that I'm getting his sort of basic right. Somebody who is British Indian, who is Hindu is reading this and not being like, she has gotten this massively wrong. And so I asked somebody to take a look at George and be like, look, am I a million miles off? Does this feel right to you? And she came back and said, this seems basically realistic. And I think that was when I really was like, I need to, I do need to do a lot of research on this and think about when I'm introducing characters from different backgrounds. Do research, but also check with people from those backgrounds being like, if you read this in a book, would it feel connected to you? Would you be like, oh, she's forgotten this really basic thing, or she's written this thing just doesn't chime with me.
And I think there's big responsibility is something that I've learned more and more. And that has made me, meeting fans, I think it's made me want to write about character in different backgrounds more and more because, being able to see yourself in a book is something that's so special, especially if that character is somebody who you can look up to and connect to in some way. It's not just a person like me is the villain again. That's not really, that's no good. But if it's somebody who's like, oh, they're a detective and oh, they're the hero and oh, they're really cool. And I think that is, it's just a really nice thing to happen. I think it's a very quiet thing to like, it's not hard to gauge what it means because what you're trying to do when you create characters like that, you're trying to give readers a feeling of happiness and comfort and safety.
And how do you really measure that? It just happens. But I do see effects in readers. And it makes me so glad that I do my research. I haven't always got 100% right. And I think you can't ever hope to because that's hoping for perfection and people are not perfect. But I think that I try with every book to do it better. And I think that it really matters. And it really changes things for people, particularly people in a very small way when they see themselves in the book. And I think it's great.
Nadia Nagamootoo 34:44
Yeah, it's so powerful for people to recognize that they have been seen that their stories, it might not be specifically exactly their story, but they can relate to it. That when of course, that curiosity that you have as an author to learn to research to find what the lived experiences are, knowing that you will only have your perspective of their story. So the care that you've taken is so vital. And that's what we tell leaders to do organizational leaders, like go speak, find out just because you see it from your perspective. And that's you've observed something happening. It's still not quite the same as actually finding out from the person themselves what's going on for them, how they've experienced it.
Robin Stevens 35:36
Exactly. I mean, I find it so fun to learn about the world. Like I love it. And I think being curious is a great thing to be because being curious about life is so positive. But certainly the research that I've done on various characters over the years, it's always ended up being really helpful. Like I'll see something in the world like, oh, I know about this.
And I can explain it or I can read a bit more about it, understand it further. It helps me navigate the world and understand it. I think it's a cool thing to do. And I hope that my books will help readers in the same way. But it's the same thing as if I'm researching the history of tennis or etiquette for the eighth book, I had to do a lot of etiquette research. I want to get my details right. So people who know about those things can connect them and be like, yes, this is correct. And, yeah.
Nadia Nagamootoo 36:18
I'm sure you'll get some very picky people. No doubt you've come across those who will really tear apart your analysis and go, well, hang on a second. That wasn't quite like it in 1935.
Robin Stevens 36:29
I did a lot of research on the history of Christmas foods. And I found out that cranberry sauce was actually something that was in the UK in 1937. I put cranberry sauce into my Christmas book. And I had a review from a paper in India. There's a mistake in this book. There's cranberry sauce in the 30s. I had to just be like, it's fine. It's OK. I knew I've done that right.
And there's so much about history that is so much more current and present that you think could possibly be like, no, there couldn't have been that kind of person. No, there couldn't have been that kind of thing. And there generally was like inventions happen much earlier than people think they do.
Nadia Nagamootoo 37:01
Silly story. Oh my goodness. I mean, that's hilarious, isn't it? I mean, that just shows you the detail you need to go into, particularly writing a book that's not set in current day, right? It's set during World War II. And how much extra research, because there will be some historians, there will be some people who will pick up that cranberry sauce isn't what should have been written in.
Robin Stevens 37:28
I mean, It's fun. It's interesting thing to do.
Nadia Nagamootoo 37:29
Hats off to you.
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Let's talk a bit more about Daisy and how she finds out more about herself. Like, in Death in the Spotlight, she falls for a girl and we find out more explicitly her sexuality. And I was reading an article that you did for Penguin and you said it was very emotional writing that particular scene where Daisy tells her best friend, Hazel, about her love for this girl. So maybe you could just expand a little bit on what was going on for you when you wrote that scene. What was the response that you got from readers?
Robin Stevens 38:56
That scene, it was a very emotional scene for me. I think because it had been a very long time coming. Like, I think that I had started to think about Daisy as queer in the second book, maybe? Certainly by the third book, I knew. I think you can see in the second book and even the first book that I was not thinking about her as a straight kid, but it was always something. I had more and more readers over the years, especially with my friends being like, but surely Daisy is queer. But it was something that I felt like I wasn't sure I could put on the page. I grew up in the 90s and early 1000s. And that was the tail end of Section 28 in the UK, which is obviously the prohibition on promoting homosexuality to children. And obviously, that's meant to be in schools. But as a result of that, there was just a kind of effective ban on talking openly in children's fiction, in children's sort of stories about queer characters, queer people. And obviously growing up, I didn't know that law was enforced because I was 8, 10, 12.
You don't know, but I felt the effects of it because I remember as a kid being quite, I guess quite confused because my parents had some gay friends and I knew what gayness, queerness was. But you genuinely didn't think that you were allowed to put that into books. I thought it was something that was in the real world that you couldn't have in fiction. And so I had perused it, even though I didn't know why, I didn't know what it meant. And so that feeling, that, I guess, self-censorship feeling that there are some things you cannot write in a book, especially not for children, followed me into adulthood. The very first book I ever read when there was any queerness at all in it was Fingersmith.
Sarah Waters, age 15, I read it and I was like, what is happening? I had just never, ever read any story about anyone who wasn't straight. And so growing up, turning into an author, I still had that feeling that you weren't really allowed to do this. And especially not with the main character. And so to actually do that and write it down was something that I had to get over a lot of fear in myself and a lot of kind of feeling like this is not something that's okay to put in a book for children. But it was something that I knew about Daisy. I knew it was true. And I also knew that even if I knew it, and I was telling fans that it was true, it didn't really matter until it was in the book for anyone to read. I want to say in a very clear way.
So it was this moment of me being like, I can actually do this. This is okay. I'm allowed to do this. And this is important. And this is who she is. And also, I think that it does who she is, but it's her best friend accepting her and saying, I still, I love you. This is fine. It was a very sort of emotional scene to write. I think it's very emotional scene to read. And it's everything that I wanted for me and my friends growing up that we just didn't have. Like every my generation just missed out on any queer role models, any understanding of what queerness was, any idea of it being positive and normal, and just a thing that is part of human experience. And I think that as adults, we're all still deeply broken by that. I think all the sort of straight people just don't expect every time they come across a queer person, they're like, what? And queer people lost these formative years of kind of thinking that we're okay. And that's such a hard thing to come back from. We're all just walking around feeling weird about it in our heads forever. And that's just not something that I want kids now to have that same feeling. And I know, you know, it's so important to see yourself in stories and to feel like I'm the hero. I'm okay. I'm normal. And the kids are allowed to read these stories now is so great.
I was terrified publishing it, like people are going to be so mad at me. But one of the very first signings I did, one of the very first kids, it was in Ireland, and it was, I can't remember where in Ireland, but it was somewhere in Dublin. One of the first kids in the line, she comes up to me, she leans over the table, goes, thank you for Daisy. Thank you for Daisy Martita. And then like books it out of the signing because she's so like freaked out and embarrassed. That happened. I was like, oh, it's going to be okay. Like it's reaching the readers it needs to reach. And so I've just had such a positive reaction. I met just kid after kid who this was the first book I've read about queer people. I never said that in a book before. I saw in your books, kids who were like, it helped me come out to help me accept my sexuality and help me realize I was queer.
And I think that's just so incredible because it just given them this head start on sort of anyone in my generation, they've already got there. And I'm like, it's wonderful. And so the fact that I can help them feel proud of who they are and okay with who they are. It is one of the things I'm proudest of in my life. And I think that one of the biggest effects that I've had on people and yeah, it's great. And I'm glad I did it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 43:25
Oh my gosh. It's more than great. And so many people are glad you did it. It's so courageous because of what you've just outlined, which is in your belief system growing up, this wasn't something that was acceptable to read about, to hear about, to be right. And so overcoming your own barriers to this, actually being able to type it and put it onto a page that potentially even would be published. I mean, that in itself was courage and thank goodness you did, because actually we need more of this in children's books in a way that actually can open up a conversation where people and young people can relate and can look and be accepting and know that if we can normalise it more, then that's the only way we can create a more inclusive society.
Robin Stevens 44:24
Exactly. And you know, I'm hoping now that kids now who are going to grow up to be storytellers have not just from my books, but from a lot of books and TV and movies are seeing it enough to feel like they could put it into their story. So I'm hoping it will have a ripple effect forward.
And especially at the moment, we are experiencing the backlash and in a very sad and scary place in queer representation and sort of queer politics. But what I'm hoping is that it is in heads and it will, queer storytelling will keep coming out in stories in the future. And that will have an effect on the real world and how people think and what they do. And yeah, that's what I hope.
Nadia Nagamootoo 45:10
Yeah. And from parents who have been less accepting of this in your book. So I'm sure many parents who wouldn't be happy about their children being exposed to different sexualities. What has been the response from those type of parents and what's your response in return?
Robin Stevens 45:31
I feel like I've been quite blessed. I haven't had a huge amount of negative feedback. I think in general, they're feeling negative and just don't contact me, which is at least nice in a way.
Nadia Nagamootoo 45:39
Well, that's a blessing, I suppose. Yeah.
Robin Stevens 45:41
But I definitely do get contacted. And I think the feeling behind it, I think, is fear and it's confusion. And it's that thing I was saying before of just they're not expecting it. It does not feel normal to them. It is not something that is part of their worldview because it was not when they were younger, where they were forming their worldviews. It's that feeling that queer sexualities are more adult than straight sexuality. And that is just something that is just not true. As parents, as adults, we want to protect children. The idea of keeping children safe is so just in our souls. We have that deep need to do that. But I think a lot of the time we forget who children really are and what children really are. And I think it's so easy as an adult to forget, to not really notice children, not really see who your child is, what they're really thinking about. And often when I go into schools and I talk to kids, they will demonstrate knowledge of politics, knowledge of the world, worldviews that the teachers, the adults around them just were not expecting them to have, to show, to know about. Kids are always ahead of what we think because children become people much younger than we think they do. And I think understanding that is so helpful.
You know, being queer is not foreign to children. There are lots of children who are queer and they just grew up and they are, and that is just who they are. And I think that's a hard thing to understand and to believe and to notice, but it's really important to understand that you can't protect a kid from themselves. All you can do is help them be themselves. And so I guess when parents write to me, I can feel that kind of confusion and fear. I want to kind of respond in a sort of sympathetic way because I understand that it's not really rage, it is fear. And they're not understanding something. And I think that I want to help them understand because it is so important for queer kids to be supported, like for kids to be supported. It is so hard to be a kid and it is so scary when your parents and your adults are mad at you for reasons that you don't understand for being who you are.
And kids who are supported by their parents just have happier lives. I want that for queer kids as well as straight kids. And it's not always the case, but that's what I hope that we as parents can think of our kids as people, not just children, and understand that people are all different and people just are born with different personalities. It's astonishing to me how young a kid is when their personality starts coming out and who they are starts revealing itself to you. And you're sort of like, oh, yeah, this couldn't be anybody else but this child. And that happens when they're babies. And it's beautiful. It's incredible. And it's something we should support. But it is also hard because I think as adults, you want to think of kids as extensions of yourself, you know, little yous, and they're not at all. But I think it's part of what I write about how hard it is to be a kid and how hard it is to show adults that you are a real person.
Nadia Nagamootoo 48:27
Yes. Yeah. With your own mind and your own perspectives. Oh, yes, that comes across very clearly. Final question from me, because I could talk to you for just so much longer, but I would love to know what your aspiration is as an author. When you're thinking about societal change, the amount of impact you've had already in the last 10 years, we've already discussed some only a drop in the ocean of the impact you've had on your readers. What's your aspiration if you were to fast forward another 10 years and imagine the books that you've written and the change and the impact you might have had societally? What would it be?
Robin Stevens 49:04
My aspiration, the most basic terms, I want to be able to keep writing books and I want to be able to keep writing the books that speak to me that I love with characters that I love. And I think that's a very basic thing. But it is something that I find scary to think about in the current cultural context, because there's such a huge and upsetting pushback against queer and trans identities. And that is a hard and scary thing to be looking at as a creator. But also it's something that I know how important it is. So I want to be able to keep telling those stories.
And I hope for a cultural context where those stories can be told. But I guess in terms of impact, I really hope that and I think that part of what it is to be an author is to impact the next generation of authors. And the wonderful thing about already having done this for 10 years is that I'm watching people grow up. I've got readers who started reading my books, started contacting me when they were emailing from their mom's emails at age 12. And now they're 22 and have left university and are starting to make their way in the world. And I hear a lot from kids who want to write and who are writing. And I already know that I have kids who are sort of growing up writing stories, writing poetry, writing and who have read my books. And I just hope that I have influenced them in a way that will help them make art. And I think that is such an incredible thing to be part of and to watch.
And I think it's beautiful. And so I hope that I get to keep doing that and also just get to watch the kids, adults who have read my books, I get to watch them grow up and become creators and creatives and can put their own stories out into the world. And it's a really, I think, a really special part of being a children's author that you get to be a little bit part of shaping the way people see the world. And I think it is a unique thing for children's authors. I think once you're an adult, your worldview, it's hard to shape a worldview. You still do grow and change and stuff.
Nadia Nagamootoo 50:54
Sure.
Robin Stevens 50:54
But it isn't foundational in the way it is. The words you read as a child just stick with you and the worldviews you read stick with you. I think that is so special. And it's a hard thing to quantify. It's a hard thing to know if it really worked. But that is what I hope I'm doing, what I would love to be able to keep doing.
Nadia Nagamootoo 51:11
Wow. Well, it's such a gift that you have on many levels, the gift of putting words to paper, but the gift of shaping young minds and shaping society. As you say, they turn into adults and go out into the world of work. And what I hear through talking to you is there's such a deep sense of compassion that you have for others. And it comes across so well in your books too, the compassion and the empathy and the ability as your characters are interacting, as they grow, as they learn. And your readers will pick that up too. And we hope shape them in their leadership in the world.
So it's been such a pleasure, Robin, to have you on Why Care. I love the work you're doing. Here's to the next 10 years. Absolutely. I'm going to be at the next party in a decade's time.
Robin Stevens 52:08
Thank you so much.
Nadia Nagamootoo 52:09
Thank you so much for sharing.
Robin Stevens 52:10
Wonderful to talk to you. Thank you.
Nadia Nagamootoo 52:12
That concludes episode 50 of Why Care. What a way to end the season. Such an honour to speak to Robin and hear how passionately she speaks about creating a world where people feel seen and heard. With her books continuing to fly off the shelves around the world, her ripple effect for developing greater acceptance of difference and inclusion for all is certainly more like waves now, and hopefully will become tidal as she enters her second decade as a children's murder mystery author. Do let Robin and I know what you thought of today's show.
You can find me on LinkedIn and Insta with the handle at Nadia Nagamootoo. As always, I really appreciate your support of this podcast through leaving a review on whatever platform you're listening and spreading the word by sharing it with your friends and family. Huge thanks to Mauro at Kenji Productions for editing this podcast and Jenny Lynton for getting it out there on social media.
