Peter Bunzl
About Author
Children's author Peter Bunzl grew up in South London in a rambling Victorian house. His father worked in antiques and his mother was a costume designer for film and television, so he got to see movies like Roger Rabbit being made and visited TV and film sets including James Bond and Postman Pat.
He went on to study art and then animation at the National Film & Television School before working on two BAFTA winning cartoon series (Yoko! Jakamoko! Toto! and The Secret Show). He also wrote and directed several fantastical shorts for children and his film Mind Games was a finalist for Virgin Media Shorts (2008) and was screened in over 200 UK cinemas.
Peter is now also an author following publication of his first children's books, Cogheart, which was published in 2016 by Usborne. He is currently writing full time and the sequel to Cogheart is due to be published in 2017.
Author link
Interview
SKYCIRCUS
USBORNE
OCTOBER 2018
SKYCIRCUS, the latest in the COGHEART series by PETER BUNZL, returns us to a world of clockwork people and animals, airships and mystery!
In the latest adventure, Lily, Robert and Malkin are lured to a circus where a flying girl leads the way into danger... The book explores questions around identity, difference and family.
We asked author PETER BUNZL to tell us more about SKYCIRCUS:
Q: This is your third Cogheart book, do you enjoy revisiting the world? How do you go about thinking of new adventures for your lead characters, Lily, Robert and Malkin, or did you have these planned out when you began the Cogheart series?
A: I love revisiting the world, yes, because it means I can find out more about it and the characters. As long as there are new places to take them and new mysteries to solve it will always be interesting.
I didn't plan the sequels when I began the first book Cogheart, but the material from that which ended up getting cut influenced the way Moonlocket and Skycircus evolved.
So my advice is, never throw anything away. (In terms of writing I mean. Obviously in real life throw some things away - you don't want to be drowning in stuff!)
Q: Your books, and especially Skycircus, explore the discrimination faced by 'hybrids' - characters who have an element of mechanical in them. Why do you want to encourage children to think about issues like this?
A: While I was writing the book there was talk from certain newspapers and politicians and various other folk about how foreigners were no longer welcome in Britain. Coming from a Jewish family, who emigrated to this country just before World War II, that kind of rhetoric makes me very uncomfortable.
I think everyone needs to question how we treat others. To be aware of how people discriminates against those who are perceived as 'different' or a 'minority'. The truth is, fundamentally, we are the same and the 'us vs them' rhetoric is only about dividing everyone and creating discord.
Q: There is also a lot of exploration around ideas of identity, especially among the Victorian orphans in this book, and Lily's investigations about her mother's past. Why does this theme play such a big part in this story?
A: Again, it is a subject that really interest me. The pigeon-holing of people according to their sex, race, sexuality, gender, temperament, character and abilities. The way society will try and iron out any quirks uniqueness in you and flatten you down to one thing - what they think you should be so you fit in. And that is no good because, the truth is, the things that make you an individual - the things that make you you - are the things that make you special.
Q: During this adventure we meet a child who is a 'hybrid' and who can fly. If you could be part mechanical, what part(s) of you would you choose to be mechanical, or would you want to have built to give you special skills?
A: Probably that specific ability: to be able to fly. I think it's something everyone dreams of as a kid. It's why superheroes are so popular. So I would be like Angelique in the story and have mechanical wings, or else I'd be like Deedee and have superhuman legs that would help me balance and wire-walk up in the giddy heights of the circus tent.
Q: There are some great characters in the story who are actually machines, or mechanicals. Which of the mechanicals in the book would you like to have at home with you?
A: Mrs Rust, the mechanical cook and housekeeper, is my favourite mechanical in the story. I love writing her little sayings like: 'cogs and chronometers!' and I think she would be great to have at home to look after you and to cook tea and give good advice.
Q: What is the most impressive man made machine you have seen, and did it help inspire Cogheart at the outset?
A: There is an theme park in France called Les Machines De L'Ile where they have all kinds of mechanical animals to ride on. I went there when I was researching the books.
They have the most amazing mechanical elephant that we rode on around the park. It inspired the idea of putting mechanical animals in Cogheart, and specifically the Elephanta character in Moonlocket - you can find out more here:
https://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/en/
Q: Skycircus is set in a circus that travels in an airship. Of all the airships your characters have travelled on in this series, which would you like to find yourself journeying in and where would you like it to take you?
A: I would like to take a trip on Ladybird, which is Anna Quinn's airship. I think she would be a fun pilot to travel with and I love the idea of a small and comfy dirigible - a bit like a caravan or barge - that flies about here and there.
I would probably take it on a voyage across the Atlantic. On one of the routes that real historical airships used to take: from Europe to America.
Q: Where and when is your favourite place to write?
A: My favourite place to write is at my desk in my office at home. And my favourite time to write is whenever the words are flowing freely - which is about once in a blue moon - and a bit like a waking dream. When the words are not flowing writing can be a nightmare.
Q: Do you have more adventures planned for Lily, Robert and Malkin? Can you give us a glimpse into the next Cogheart book, or what you are writing now?
A: I do have one more adventure currently planned for Lily, Robert and Malkin. I can't really say anything about it at the moment because it's top secret. But maybe there's a little clue to something that happens in the story in the answer about where I would travel in an airship.
Q: Before writing books your career was in film animation. Do you still do work in that area? What do you enjoy the most about being an author?
A: I am not doing animation at the moment as authoring is keeping me busy! The thing I enjoy most about the job is creating stories and characters and bringing them to life. Most of all I want people to be drawn into the adventures and, as the series progresses, gradually feel like the characters are old friends.
MOONLOCKET
USBORNE BOOKS
MAY 2017
With their adventure-driven plots and steampunk attributes, Peter Bunzl's Cogheart books would be enjoyed by any young reader wanting strong world-building with great characters and plenty of action.
After the heart-stopping pace of Cogheart, the first in the series, Lily and Robert are back in Moonlocket with a whole new mystery to solve and villains to catch!
Criminal mastermind the Jack of Diamonds has broken out of prison and is searching for the mysterious Moonlocket, but why? And what does Robert's past have to do with Jack? Robert and Lily must stay one step ahead of the villain's plans, or all will be lost....
We asked author PETER BUNZL to tell us more about his latest book, MOONLOCKET.
Q: In the first book, Cogheart, you established your 'steampunk' world of humans and mechanicals. Did you enjoy revisiting that world for Moonlocket?
A: It was fantastic fun to revisit the world of Cogheart in Moonlocket. I loved having a chance to expand the characters of Lily, Robert and Malkin and take them off on a new adventure - one filled with catastrophe and courage, hidden lockets and escaped convicts.
Q: There is a mystery at the heart of the story, which Lily and Robert have to solve, concerning the Moonlocket. Why did you want the story to have this detective angle?
A: I adore mystery stories, especially ones with codes, maps and puzzles to solve. Cogheart already had a little bit of that detective angle and I wanted to up those elements of the story. So the mysteries in Moonlocket became more complex and Robert and Lily have to use their wits to a greater degree this time to solve the clues themselves.
Q: Did you enjoy mystery stories as a child?
A: As I child I loved scary stories with a bit of mystery. I had audiobooks of Sherlock Holmes and they were both fascinatingly scary and fiendishly intriguing when you discovered how the villains had committed their crimes. I also loved Secret Seven and Famous Five mysteries, and other classic children's mystery stories like: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, or The Box of Delights.
Q: The Victorians loved stories that featured lockets and lost identities - did this help you form some of your ideas for Moonlocket?
A: When I began thinking of Victorian mysteries, apart from the cases of Sherlock Holmes, the other classic that popped into my mind was The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins - that's where I got the idea for the title of Moonlocket.
The Moonstone is a Victorian mystery about a missing diamond that also influenced The Jewelled Moth by Katherine Woodfine and The Ruby in the Smoke by Phillip Pullman, two modern detective stories set in that era, which I have also enjoyed immensely.
Q: The Victorians were also interested in spiritualism and this comes up in Moonlocket. Is what you describe what one might have seen in a spiritualist show of the time?
A: It's a mish-mash of the different types of Victorian spiritualist shows I researched. At first I didn't know whether the seance in Moonlocket would be a parlour scene - I love those parlour seances in stories; one of my favourite is a movie called Seance on a Wet Afternoon - or whether it would be a big theatrical type spiritualist show.
Both types of performance existed in Victorian times, but in the end I chose the latter because it fit better with the drama of what happens after that and the history of the characters involved.
Q: Have you ever seen, or thought you saw, a ghost?
A: I am not sure how I feel about ghosts. Like most people there have been times when I've woken in the night to a strange sound, or glimpsed something in the dark beside the bed that looks like a shadowy figure. But usually, when you wake properly and focus, you realize it was a trick of the brain. That's not to say that ghosts couldn't exist, just that I don't think I've ever seen one.
Q: Your villains - Jack and Finlo - are wonderfully Dickensian but why do you make them so irredeemabl?
A: I think they are irredeemable because they are Dickensian. One of my favourite villains in Dickens is Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist. I adore the sequence where he takes Oliver to do the robbery, and how unforgiving he is of everyone involved when things go wrong. He's the ultimate irredemably dark villain. Those gothic types in Victorian literature are so interesting to me. So Bill and his cohorts really influenced Jack and Finlo's portrayal in Moonlocket.
Q: What inspired the mechanical elephant in Moonlocket - was it the one that went walkabout in London?
A: Yes, I saw that show; The Sultan's Elephant it was called. But that particular mechanical elephant lives in an amazing theme park in France filled with mechanimals! It's called Les Machines De l'ile (http://lesmachines-nantes.fr/en/). Every day that mechanical elephant walks about the park trumpeting and spraying the passers by with his trunk. We visited when I was researching Cogheart and rode on his back and inside his belly, where you can see some of the workings. It was the MOST fun. So afterwards I thought: I have to put a mechanical elephant in my next book.
Q: If you could have your own 'mechanical' - a clockwork human or animal - what would it be and what would they do for you?
A: If I had a mechanimal it would have to be an animal that didn't exist in the real world, like a dragon. My mechanical dragon would do everything a fictional dragon can do; fly, breathe fire, hoard gold... Because why go for reality when you can have any creature you want? There's actually a video of a real mechanical dragon somewhere on youtube - I think it was made by the same people as the elephant.
Q: Much of the series is set in London. What is your favourite part of London, and what is your favourite part of London's history?
A: One of my favourite parts of London is around Spitalfields Market where you have those Georgian Streets like Fournier Street that feel like you're walking through history.
In fact, Brick Lane, and that whole area is pretty interesting historically. Having hosted the first waves of various migrant communities to this country, who came through London, it is full of their rich histories. Everyone from the Huguenots to the Jews to the Bangladeshis have lived there and made their mark on the area.
Q: If you could step back into a period of history, which would it be?
A: I think I would like to go and meet my grandparents in Austria in the mid 1930s, when they were young, before they came to England during WW2 (that's another story). Unfortunately they both died when I was a kid, before I really got to know them properly, but I have some great pictures of them when they were teenagers goofing off and hanging out. It looks like it would be fun to go and spend a day with them back then. So I would do that. (I think this answer is partly inspired by Ross Welford's Time Travelling with a Hamster, which I just read and was brilliant!)
Q: What would be your favourite day off spent in (contemporary) London? Where would you go, what would you see?
A: There is an amazing exhibition of robots at the science museum right now which is well worth a look. It's on until September. Otherwise, on my day off, I would probably go to the Tate Modern and see an art show. There's always something interesting on there and my partner is a painter so we go to see a lot of their painting exhibitions, which are always interesting. I also love the Renoir Cinema. They show a lot of original European films and documentaries - stuff you won't see down your local multiplex.
Q: Do you have another adventure planned for Lily and Robert, or are you writing something else?
A: Yes, I have just started writing the third book in the series. I can't really tell you anything about it yet as it's very early days and it's highly top secret. But Lily and Robert and Malkin will be back for at least one more adventure!
Q: What are your top tips for budding writers?
Read widely. Underline the bits you love in books, or dog ear the corners to save a page. Keep a notebook full of ideas, copy out quotes you like or funny things you hear on the bus. Save postcards and images that inspire you. Watch interesting films - I love old movies which have lots of space for you to add your own interpretation of events. Just collect things that inspire. Then write a little every day, and try to finish what you start writing.
COGHEART
USBORNE BOOKS
SEPTEMBER 2016
COGHEART is a full-throttle adventure story by PETER BUNZL, set in a deftly-realised Victorian world of 'mechanical' servants and pets, where steam-powered flying machines fill the skies.
When 13 year old Lily's inventor father is presumed dead in an air crash, she is sent to live with her authoritarian governess. But her father had a secret, kept in small box, that others will do anything to get hold of. When Lily and her friend Robert discover the box, they are forced into hiding and, helped by their mechanical fox Malkin, must run for their lives.
We asked PETER BUNZL to tell us more about his debut children's book:
Q: Have you always wanted to be a children's author?
A: As a child I was interested in telling stories and I wrote and illustrated stories for my family before moving on to producing my own comics. Then my mum bought me a book about animation and from that point I was really interested in how you brought stories to life.
My mum was a costume designer for programmes like Postman Pat and the Muppet Movies and she had a friend who worked on the film Roger Rabbit. Once I'd seen the animations being made, I wanted to make my own so I started creating little animations of my own stories using a 16mm Bolex camera which can film one frame at a time. I guess I was a really geeky teenager.... These days I've have been stuck in front of a computer screen.
Q: Why have you made the move from film to books?
A: I tried to write screen plays but that is quite technical and I found it a bit boring. I was taking classes in writing at the City Lit at the time I was writing Cogheart, which had begun as a screen play. I decided to write it as prose fiction instead. One of the advantages is that you don't need to worry whether something can be animated or not.
Q: For children who haven't yet read it, how would you describe Cogheart?
A: It's an action adventure with heart. You've got airships and battles and dangers, alongside characters who learn who they really area as the adventure develops.
Q: What sparked the idea for Cogheart?
A: The idea that came first was the automatons or little machines. I was reading a history of automatons in the eighteenth century and how eighteenth century inventors were trying to bring these machines to life. There were lots of discussions at the time about these new machines, for example whether they would have a soul or not. So the whole idea of bringing machinery to life attracted me.
Q: How did you develop the Victorian world for Cogheart's setting?
A: Having decided to write about automatons I had to find a world they would fit in. I knew I wanted to write a big action adventure story and I decided I could bring these together more easily in a 'Steampunk' world than a more factual historical fiction.
I decided to set it in London because I've lived here all my life, its ingrained in me and I love books that have London as a character. I live in Islington which is great because it is so near to the centre of the city but you can also reach the parks like Hampstead Heath.
I think the area that reminds me most of Cogheart's setting is around Bermondsey, the little roads near London Bridge and the more gentrified area of Lincoln's Inn Fields; they feel very Dickensian.
Q: Did you read Dickens's novels as part of your research for the setting?
A: Yes, I find it easier to read fiction about the time than non fiction so I read quite a few of Dickens's books before starting to write, including Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. There is so much gritty detail about Victorian London in his work.
Q: Did you also try to see some automatons as part of your research?
A: We went to France to visit Les Machines de L'ile in Nantes, France, to see some modern automatons; you might remember the Great Elephant automaton that they brought to London a few years ago? You can see that moving about in the park, it is enormous, but they also have mechanical insects and a tree you can climb inside.
At the other end of the scale, we visited a museum of electric-powered mechanicals in the UK which had slightly stranger objects like mechanised humans with cats heads.
Q: What did you decide the rules would be for Cogheart's world?
A: There's no Harry Potter style magic so everything has to be quite practical. Lily lives in a world where there are clockwork robots and animals but as they are quite expensive, only rich people can own them. If that is the case, then many of these robots would need to be servants.
So I envisaged a Downton Abbey-style setting for Cogheart, where you have rich people who can have mechanicals as servants or, in Lily's home, where the mechanicals are friends.
Q: Which of the mechanicals that we meet in Cogheart would you like to bring home with you?
A: Definitely the fox, Malkin. At the time I was writing Cogheart we had a fox living in our garden and I wrote the first scene of the story with him in mind. I had originally planned for it to be a mechanical man being chased through the woods but I thought it was more likely that an animal was being chased. If it was an animal being chased, it was probably going to be a fox.
Mrs Rust, the housekeeper, is my other favourite mechanical. I'd love for her to run my house - and I wouldn't have to pay her...!
Q: There is a mystery at the heart of the novel, the box that Lily discovers and which the villains want. Why do you make this the driver of the story?
A: I needed something that would act as a bit of a red herring for the action but I also wanted there to be something of import in the box. What is inside the box helps Lily to learn more about her past.
Q: The villains in the story are ruthless in their pursuit of Lily but were probably fun to write - who is your favourite?
A: That would be Mould and Roach, the henchmen. I was reading a lot of Neil Gaiman who has fabulous villains and I saw these two in my head and one of them had these awful silver mirror eyes - perfect!
Q: You also have some very exciting battles between airships; did you get to know a lot about airships while you were researching for the book?
A: I'm not a natural engineer but I did need to know how airships operated for the story so I did some research into how they were engineered. I discovered that there are places in America today where they are trying to build modern versions of the old airships for military contracts.
Airships would have a future if they could be made safer. I read personal accounts of some earlier journeys that people had made in airships, including one by a girl who flew from Germany to South America. She was even taken into the gondola to see how it operated. It sounded like a lovely way to travel!
Q: Can you tell us what to expect in the second Cogheart book?
A: There's a little teaser at the end of book one and it's to do with an escaped convict, a missing locket and a woman from the past.... This book will be about Robert's family rather than Lily's, and what he learns about his family and his past.
Q: Can you describe your favourite day?
A: Probably going for a walk on the Heath with my partner and then going to lunch, and after that reading or perhaps watching a documentary in the afternoon.
Q: Where do you write?
A: Either at my desk in the sitting room or I go to one of the libraries like the British Library or the local one to do edits because it's quieter there, or a cafe if I want somewhere a bit noisier.
Skycircus
Moonlocket
Cogheart
