Biscuits & Books with Black Swan 06 – Featuring Mike Gaunt

Mike Gaunt is author of the introductory book in the Turmali and The Light Savers series, a new and exciting adventure series for kids aged 7-13. The series sees a group of young, diverse protagonists helping to save the lands of Turmali after they’ve been invaded by light-hating aliens. I was lucky enough to pick Mike’s brain a bit and get to know more… 

BSBP: Turmali and The Light Savers… What inspired this new children’s book series?

MG: I worked for IBM for almost 10 years as head of international markets (everywhere except North America) for educational software. Although my territory did not cover North America my boss insisted, I was at all the sales meetings (2 per month) in Atlanta. My job entailed setting up a distributor network, but also selling to educational establishments (Mainly country education authorities) During my time at IBM I met many educationalists, teachers and hundreds of children. Wherever I was in the world I was always asked one question by the children: “What do children do in your country?”

This question stayed with me after I left IBM and has been the inspiration for the ‘Turmali and the Light Savers’ series. I wanted to create a series of interconnected stories featuring children from different countries around the world, and from diverse backgrounds, to try and let the characters answer that question for me.

I have visited many countries around the world on business and seen the huge differences in lifestyles in many countries. I have seen the Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro which inspired me to make one of the characters (Ricardo da Silva) come from there. I have also seen the homes and lifestyles of very wealthy children around the world and as well as covering the slum areas of India, Philippines and other countries, I wanted to share all my experiences with the readers of the series.

BSBP: There’s a whole group of skilled authors behind this series, how did all come together to be such a team project? 

MG: I set out the initial storyline myself, but soon realised I did not know enough about children from some of the countries in the stories. I searched online and found a site where I could request the help of enthusiastic but unpublished writers of children’s stories. The process was not simple, however one of the first people to apply to be a writer, was Patricia Sumner. Patricia (Pat) and I soon met and realised we had a good connection. Pat was extremely excited by the project and showed me some of her work. I then found out that Pat was an ex teacher, an English language graduate and professional proofreader. Unsurprisingly Pat joined me at the beginning and helped me to choose the writers from a very large list.

Pat later became the story coordinator for us and communicated regularly with all the writers. Pat then became the editor and proof-reader for all the stories.

We originally began with 13 writers (one for each character) but over time this number was reduced to 9. Some of the writers were just not good enough and were replaced by existing writers from the team. Sadly one of our writers died in 2020.

The Turmali project has taken around 6 years to complete, with a total of 130 stories, 10 for each of the 13 characters. We decided to put five stories together in each print book. We have 26 character books, an intro book ‘How it all began’ and a blockbuster final book. ‘Turmali the final battle.’

The 28 books have around 8000 pages and just over 1200 colour illustrations.

The total word count of over 1.2 million words is almost the same as all the Harry Potter series.

(All the writers were paid to write for us and therefore the copyright is retained fully by our company.)

BSBP: It’s so nice to see a cast of young, strong and diverse teens at the heart of these stories. Many young readers from all different backgrounds may never have seen themselves in the media before reading this series, is there any message you’d like to send to these young readers? 

MG: We really want our readers to gain some understanding of different nationalities and cultures as they read the stories. We believe every child reading the stories should be able to recognise themselves and their friends

in at least one of the characters. The message we would like to get across is: no matter what your nationality, colour, religion or background, you can achieve anything you set your mind on.

The seven lands of Turmali were created to be similar to the continents of Earth, this gave us the opportunity to bring into the stories information that relates to the earth continents. Examples of this include the deforestation by the Light Killers on the land of Pula, which is like South America.

Our characters come together to make a difference to the lives of the people of Turmali and help in their fight against the alien invaders. We want children to know they are the future of our planet and by working together in harmony they can help the world become a better and more peaceful place.

BSBP: These books are filled with full colour, full page illustrations to aid the stories, how important were these illustrations to you? 

MG: I think the old saying, ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ describes why we feel illustrations are a vital part of our books. Every child reading one of our books will have their own images of the characters and locations, we feel that by having these illustrations it will help the reader to better understand the stories.

BSBP: There’s currently 14 Light Saver books in print, is it even possible for you to pick a favourite Light Saver? If so, who? 

MG: I think all the Light Savers have something about them that every reader will find appealing, I like all the characters (not a surprise) however I always smile at some of the exploits of Ricardo.

BSBP: A percentage of revenue is being donated to Rainbows Hospice, a wonderful charity, what can you tell us about the charity?

MG: Rainbows is a special charity that looks after the Rainbows hospice in Loughborough near Leicester. The hospice cares for terminally ill children and has a fabulous reputation. As a local children’s charity and the Rainbow connection it seemed a perfect fit for us.

BSBP: What’s next for the Light Savers?

MG: The first 14 books are printed and published, the next 14 titles, all volume 2 books and the final book, Turmali and The Light Savers, the final battle, are all written and waiting for the illustrations to be completed. We plan to begin distributing the second volumes at the beginning of 2023.

The ‘Final battle’ story has an excellent ending, which leaves the series open to future books.

BSBP: The idea for this series is so unique, Turmali is invaded by aliens who hate bright light (hence the need for Light Savers) – is this perhaps a metaphor for anything these readers can connect to the real world?

MG: With the seven lands representing the continents of earth, we introduced the Light Killers as the enemy, that everyone wants to defeat, and wanted the readers to think a little about the actions of the Light Killers as they set out to destroy Turmali. There are many of our stories that reflect what is happening in our world, we hope these will make our readers think a little more about the world they live in. The underlying story is about how, when needed people from different cultures can pull together for the same ends.

Perhaps a deeper thought is that it may take an alien invasion or similar to make our world stop fighting and work together for a better future.

BSBP: Encouraging children to read more is so important, you’ve expressed and aim to reduce children’s screen time on electronic devices, how would you go about persuading the most tech-obsessed youngster that this series is for them? 

MG: It is a difficult ask, to get children away from their electronic devices, perhaps getting our books into the hands of children around the world, may help. If we can begin to build a global brand we are more likely to get better media coverage, which may well tempt those ‘electronic kids’ to try one of the books. We have a series of collector cards (see our website) currently 121, featuring characters from the stories. These cards can be used to play any standard card game and many that we have created specifically for this set. We have plans to extend the series of cards and already have plans for an extensive trading card game, all dependent upon the success of the books.

We currently send a free pack of 5 cards to buyers from the website, together with a thank you and explanatory note. (I am happy to introduce this to you if we can work out the logistics.

We believe this could also be an electronic game where many of the answers are in the stories.

BSBP: Do you have any writing inspirations? Anyone you read as a child and stuck with you the way we’re sure the Turmali series will leave an impression on its readers?

MG: I was a reluctant reader as a child, mainly because I was into sports and spent most of my spare time playing rather than reading. This is one of the reasons we created the series of stories in readable chunks rather than long tomes.

If it was possible I would give every person who buys one of our books, the ‘How it all began’ book for free to try and get them hooked.

Black Swan sends thanks to Mike not only for the great chat with us, but for this series which is sure to make children feel seen, represented and entertained. 

‘Turmali and The Light Savers’ are available at YPDBooks.com