Anne Fine has written over 70 books for children, each one insightful and original, and brilliantly rewarding. In On the Wall, this former Children's Laureate excels again, delivering a refreshing and delightful read, and a brilliant choice for any child about to embark on their secondary school journey. Reviewed for LoveReading4Kids by Louise Johns-Shepherd, "this is a book about the transition to secondary school but it's not the usual story of struggles to fit in or difficulties with home life. There’s a teacher but he’s not a ‘hero’, there are friendships but they aren’t defined by their challenges, there are the pressures of new expectations and of growing up, but they aren’t arduous or insurmountable. This is a different kind of story."

We were delighted to grab the opportunity to ask Anne Fine a few questions about her beautiful and compelling new novel, On the Wall. 

Q. Your hero Finley is a wonderfully tranquil person, spreading acceptance of himself and others, which then ripples out to his classmates and the school community. This is quite an unusual lead character; where did the idea of Finley come from and was he always going to be a gentle soul?  

A. There are children like Finley, though they are admittedly few and far between. He’s based on a child I’ve watched growing in our local community, from his peaceful amiability in his stroller right through to his imperturbable first years in secondary school. But, like all authors, I become interested in one aspect of someone’s life, or character, and take off from there. Even those who know the original boy might not recognise the Finley in this book.

When I began, I expected to be writing about the effect of the other, more rambunctious, pupils on Finley. But novels are full of surprises. It turned out that his effect on them was much deeper and much more interesting.

Q. What do you hope readers will take from your book?

A. I hope it brings home to them, in a comforting way, a reminder of the sheer range of personalities around them. Understanding how others tick is a sure way, even unthinkingly, to develop self-awareness - (“She’s like me.” “I’m not like him at all.”) – and knowing yourself, your own strengths and weaknesses, is always a virtue. Others will always have skills, or temperaments, or even families, young people are tempted to envy. But every class is pick-and-mix, so I hope the book reminds them that there’s room on the planet for everyone. With luck they’ll come to see that there’s real value in Finley’s simple self-acceptance.

Q. Were your own memories of the secondary school transition reflected in On the Wall?

A. Oh, not at all. I moved in that year from a modern state primary in Hampshire to a long established girls’ high school in Northampton. My first year there was spent in a lovely old house with carpets and curtains, mirrors and paintings and furniture – along with ancient wooden desks. I do remember thinking it very odd – and quite wonderful. By then, I’d got in the habit of losing myself in books at every spare moment. And since it was a rather strict academic school (and I loved that) I wasn’t aware of much of the sociable side. We tended to work separately, and mostly in silence. But I did become good friends with one or two who caught the same bus home.

Q. You've written so many different books. Do you always have the idea for the next one as soon as you've finished the one before?

A. Almost never. I have to wait for what Martin Amis once called ‘the nudge’. Out of the blue, something begins to intrigue me, or an image, or something overheard, sticks in my mind. I don’t do research as such, but I do like to read widely around the topic to give myself the confidence that I know what I’m writing about. I think I’m much more interested in emotional situations than in plots. As for the characters, they tend to start as almost ‘off the peg’, with just one or two traits. But they start to grow personalities under the pen, till they become all but unmalleable. That’s when the writing really takes off.

Q. As a writer for a wide age range of readers, do you know what age range your books are going to be for before you write them?

A. Absolutely. I’ve said, “I write for me at 5, or me at 9 or me at 11, or whatever.” And I do seem to have a trace memory of what would have chimed in with me as a reader at any of those ages. But I recognise that reading abilities can be very different, and that children read up or down, depending on mood. So I never put ages in my books, because I do want children of any age to be able to identify with my characters.

Q. We love the books published by Old Barn, with its mission to seek out powerful writing on themes that resonate long after the book has been finished. I recently read The 10 p.m. Question and it has done just that - Frankie, and his extraordinary family and friends revisit me when my mind wanders! Do you have a favourite book published by Old Barn Books?

A. Well, snap! Because it was when I read The 10 p.m. Question that I first came across Kate De Goldi’s work, and was bowled over by its lively inventiveness. The book is bursting with intriguing and forceful characters, and stuffed with the sort of amusing, if often arcane, observations that cause the child reader to trail you around the house, repeatedly saying, “Mu-um! Did you know that….?” An education in themselves, aided by their New Zealand setting, with the seasons topsy turvy, and fresh slang. So it was good to see Old Barn also publishing Eddy Eddy, with similarly vivid characters in curious situations, but who never shade into caricature. (No. No shy violets in Kate De Goldi’s work!)

Q. What was the first book you fell in love with?

A. The Faraway Tree books enchanted me, along with most of Enid Blyton’s work. She was a graded reading scheme in herself, turning my whole generation into readers. But my lasting passion was William. I adored everything Richmal Crompton wrote. (Her adult novels are worth finding, too.) I still remember the shock of finding out, when I was about eleven, that she was a woman. Her wonderful William was my imaginary friend for years. I’d have long conversations with him when I was out walking the dog. And the vocabulary in her books is so wide that, once you’ve read the lot, you can read pretty well anything and everything.

So I did.

Q. What does LoveReading4Kids mean to you?

A. You’d expect an author to be all in favour of anything that encourages reading – especially the reading of their own books. But LoveReading4Kids is such an upbeat website. I admire the way in which it is so good at getting the best books into the hands of those children who would otherwise be denied the same opportunities for good reading as others. And it gives such positive support to schools, doing the job of promoting books so well, and saving teachers so much valuable time.

A warm and witty novel, with a lot to say about the value of silence.

On the Wall by Anne Fine is published by Old Barn Books and is available to buy now.

You can also watch Anne in conversation with our LoveReading4Schools Editorial Expert, Joy Court, discussing Aftershocks, part dystopia, part ghost story and an agonisingly accurate portrait of a family under terrible stress, inspired by the catastrophic 2011 Japanese tsunami.  

Find a selection of Anne's books below - read our expert reviews, download an extract or add the books to your basket, knowing that with every purchase on LoveReading4Kids a school close to your heart benefits.