Arts / Canadian connection leads cousins to pen children’s book
A MAGICAL tale of cousins from across the Atlantic being brought together for a series of adventures has been brought to life … by cousins from across the Atlantic.
Susan McCallum – from Yukon, Canada – and Vaila Randle, who lives in Yell, have penned the first in a new series of children’s books, Sizzie and Vaila: Hats in the Attic.
Illustrated by McCallum, the tale tells the story of two cousins who both live 60 degrees north that discover they can travel through a portal across the world to visit each other through old family hats they find in the loft.
The idea for the book came after the co-authors themselves met up for the first time in 2018.
A chance find in a relative’s Lerwick home saw Raymond Irvine – who is related to both – get in touch with McCallum after discovering hand-drawn cards she had made.
“I came home one day and had this broad Shetland accent on my answering machine,” McCallum said.
“Before I knew it, I had come over for a visit.
“I loved Shetland immediately so I just wanted to come back again and again.”
Randle said she had always known that they had cousins in Canada, but they had never gotten around to finding where they were or getting in touch with them.
But when McCallum did make it across to the isles, the pair hit it off straight away.
“I don’t know how it came up, but I said I went to a writer’s group,” Randle said.
“She [McCallum] has illustrated books all of her life, but said she wanted to do her own story now.”
McCallum said that as soon as her cousin revealed she was a writer, it was “a match made in heaven”.
“I said to her, ‘let’s do a children’s book’,” McCallum added.
The seeds of what would become Sizzie and Vaila were beginning to be sown, but the Covid pandemic would throw a spanner in the works.
However the pair were undeterred, writing together over Zoom from across the globe – with McCallum drawing up sketches to accompany the story as they went.
With McCallum having to get five planes just to get to Shetland – and another four home – the idea for the story became ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could just magic ourselves across to see each other?’
Hats in the Attic has already been launched to a set of enthusiastic bairns in the Mid Yell school last week, and will be brought to a wider audience at the Shetland Library tomorrow (Saturday).
McCallum joked that her grandkids had already been inspired by the story, even going as far as to copy the antics of the titular twosome by walking across a beaver dam.
“Their mom was saying, ‘you can’t walk across a beaver dam’, and they were saying, ‘eh, yes we can – Sizzie and Vaila do it!’”
The first draft of the book came in at 5,000 words – something, its co-authors were told, would seriously stretch the patience of a child.
“The story was there,” Randle said, “we just needed a lot of editing.”
Randle – who has gone under the pseudonym Gracie V. Randle for the book, to avoid confusion over their being two Vaila’s – said the characters were similar to the co-authors in some ways.
“Vaila is more timid, she’s more like me,” Randle said.
“Whereas Sizzie is more bossy. I’ll say nothing!”
The duo already has book two well in production, which will be set in Shetland this time and will feature trows, with hopes for a full series.
Randle said the Shetland Library have been “amazing” before tomorrow’s launch, which will be more interactive than a traditional book reading – with bairns given the chance to map out their own story, with where in the world they would travel to, as they see Sizzie and Vaila’s adventures unfold in front of their eyes.
The launch is being held from 2-4pm tomorrow.
You can order the book by following this link.
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