Meeting novelist Lucy Hawking

At a children’s birthday party several years ago a little boy asked Lucy Hawking’s dad what would happen to him if he fell into a black hole.  Lucy Hawking’s father, of course, is eminent astrophysicist (and arguably the most brilliant scientist since Einstein) Stephen Hawking, and that precocious question has lead to two children’s books about space, with a third coming out next summer.

Lucy Hawking came out to Arizona State last week to talk about her two novels and the direction of space science within children’s literature.

A cute blonde woman with a thick British accent, Hawking talked to her audience as one friend might talk to another over a cup coffee.  Hawking had been working as a journalist in the UK when her son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three.  Along with the other challenges that goes along with autism, Hawking was concerned on how her son would be able to one day understand the principles of science and space.  The question at the birthday party inspired the answer.

Hawking had previously written two short stories, Jaded (2004) and Run for Your Life (2005) and called up her editor with the proposal of a story of a child traveling through space.  They were both surprised that little to no previous literature had been written on the topic and Hawking was soon at work with her father and her father’s colleagues to get a better understanding of different elements of space and how to best describe it to children.

The product was 2007’s George’s Secret Key to the Universe, an adventure tale about a boy called George who finds himself on a space shuttle traveling around the solar system.  Scientists and astronauts around George provide him with answers to how space works.  This book has since been translated in 38 languages in 43 countries. In this first novel Hawking wanted to focus on the creation of stars.

In the follow up novel, George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt (2009), Hawking wanted to turn her focus onto space travel in general, with an emphasis on shuttles, rockets, and looking for signs of life outside of Earth. 

Hawking told the class that she recently fished her third novel (yet to be named) which will finish George’s adventures with the explanation of The Big Bang.

Hawking joked to the class “You can’t write “the end” at the end of your manuscript but I did.  I just described The Big Bang to kids, I’ll do as I like!”

She was also quite excited to share with us that George’s Secret Key to the Universe is set to become a live-action children’s tv series on the BBC in the upcoming months.

In taking questions from the audience she stated that she has never been challenged by creationists for her works.  She said that the books explain how things in space are, not “explain how they came to be that way.”  The character of Eric is based on her father, and the character of Annie is meant as a female scientist for little girls to look up to.  When I asked her if she felt that children’s books should focus more on fact-based issues such as space rather than wizards or vampires she said “No no, whatever gets children reading.”  While she said that her books are not meant to give importance to one school of thought over another, she does have subtle messages in her books such as unity and conserving the environment.

Hawking will be staying in Arizona for a few weeks as she tours her books around Phoenix classrooms as well as participating in Arizona State University’s Origins Project, where she’ll be researching the origin of evil within the history of literature.