Discover a world of miniature people!

MAX AND THE MILLIONS takes readers on an incredible journey into a world of tiny people whose future depends on a boy called Max. Author ROSS MONTGOMERY tells us more!

Q: Your book follows Max who discovers a world of living, miniature people. What gave you the idea for this world? A: Hundreds of things! I love the idea that the world is filled with things so small we can't see them, and how easy it is for us to dismiss them. We swat flies and mosquitoes without even thinking about it - what if they had full, rich lives? What if woodlice had dreams?! I was HUGELY influenced by Terry Pratchett's CARPET PEOPLE and TRUCKERS trilogy, both of which imagine a race of tiny people living alongside us - they had such a huge influence on me as a child, as did all of Pratchett's books. Q: How did you create the 'rules' of the miniature world in this story? A: Ha! The rules were, to be frank, a complete nightmare! When I first came up with the story, the floor people lived at a MUCH faster speed to our world. In the space of a single hour, whole generations would have passed - the story would jump between our world and the floor world, showing that tiny decisions made by Max had consequences that lasted for a whole generation on the floor. This was clearly too tricky, and made you care less about what happened to the individual floor people - which was the exact opposite effect I wanted. I loved the idea of small people living at a faster speed - flies, for example, see every single frame of a film rather than a blur like we do. The challenges of this were huge - I had to show all of Max's movements in slow motion, and all of the floor people's movements sped up, and make it clear how those two things were interacting. Part of the fun of reading it is in decoding what's happened and why. The difficulty of the two worlds communicating is a central part of the book - how do we try to talk to someone when they don't understand us? It is so easy to forget about people that we can't understand, and to forget about them - I wanted to show what a challenge Max's everyday life can be as a deaf person, and then apply that to a fantastical situation. Q: Is that why you decided to make Max deaf? A: When I first began planning the book, Max wasn't deaf - I knew it would be a book about a boy trying to communicate with a microscopic world and all the problems that could cause, but that was it. At the time, I was also working with a deaf man who wore hearing aids. It was only when he started talking to me about the mistakes that hearing people frequently make when talking to the deaf - covering their mouth when they talk, not taking the time to make sure information has been passed on clearly - that I realised I had been making those very mistakes with him for years! The more I thought about it, the more I realised that those issues fitted perfectly with the book I wanted to write. It also made me realise that I couldn't think of a single book with a deaf main protagonist in it - especially an adventure book. I wanted to write a book where a deaf main character was able to take the lead, and do things that other characters couldn't! Q: You also explore the 'politics' of the world in which the 'tribes' divide according to the colour of their hair and what happens as a result of this. What would you like young readers to take away from the characters' experiences? A: Children nowadays, in my experience, are very clued-up to the idea of not judging people according to their differences - certainly more so than when I was a child. They know, fundamentally, that it's wrong to make assumptions on someone based on their accent or skin colour. But this is something that cannot be overstated: it needs expressing again and again, in as many different ways as possible. So much of the book is about the idea of empathy, and of trying to place yourself in someone else's position in order to move forward. The world is only getting bigger, and we're arguing more and more: we need to make sure that children are grounded in the idea that people must work together. Q: If you found yourself the right size and on the Floor, are there any places you'd like to visit or experiences you'd like to have? A: On the one hand, I'd like to arm myself to the teeth and begin a war against the moths currently eating all my jumpers, like some sort of Van Helsing figure... but that wouldn't be very empathetic, would it?! I guess I'd have to start official conversations with them instead, and find a way for us to co-exist peacefully. Maybe if I formed a united front with the spiders or something, we could impose sanctions on them. Q: Model building is a big part of this story. Is that something you've done? A: I'm terrible at building models, which was part of the appeal of writing about it! I don't have the patience or care for it: I start off well, get bored and trash whatever I'm making. I loved the idea of people dedicating such care, time, consideration and love to something so small. My first inspiration was Beckonscott Model Village, which I visited as a child, but the research was fascinating. I mention Willard Wigan, a microartist who make sculptures that fit inside the eyes of needles. I also discovered the Musee Miniature et Cinema in Lyons, where a man has made an elaborate Natural History Museum-style building you can just about squat inside! Q: Do you plan to revisit the Floor tribes - and Max - in another book? A: I have certainly considered it. Without giving too much away, there's scope for what the tiny people do next when the story finishes. In fact, I had a boy write me a letter with a FANTASTIC idea for a sequel! I may just have to steal it off him (sorry Maxwell...)