with
Children's Author Scott Abrams
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Time Sailors of Pizzolungo - Interview
with Children's Author Scott Abrams |
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Scott Abrams
sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine recently to discuss this
children’s adventure novel. “I never set
out to write a book, much less a children’s book and the idea came to me
in an unexpected way. Years ago I was in Sicily near Pizzolungo. We were
sitting at a villa poolside and it happened to be my birthday when a
friend of mine gave me a small little boat as a birthday gift. I am not
sure why. The boat package said that it grows in the water. Naturally we
plunked it into the pool and we sat around waiting for it to grow, but
strangely it didn’t grow. We said maybe it needs some time to grow and
we checked it the next day and we couldn’t find the boat. We searched
the same pool and it was completely gone. A few years after that I was
emailing with one of my friends who was with me that day and exchanging
joking messages about the boat and where it might have gone. He said it
probably went into the filtration system and headed out to sea and that
it was probably the biggest ship in the ocean right now. We started
trading emails about that and expanding on it. At one point I said that
I am going to turn this into a children’s story and I really didn’t
believe it myself, but I did eventually. I had written a screenplay with Adam Blockton
fifteen years ago and I wrote to him and I said I have a new writing
project that I am going to work on. I sent him my story and at the time
I was thinking of writing this as a little picture book for very young
children from age two to three. Adam said, why don’t you write it for
young adults? I said I don’t know, I’ve never written a book before and
we started going back and forth about how to build the story, so that it
was really fleshed out into a suspenseful, comedic tale. A day or two
later we had the outline for this. I said why don’t we write it together
and so we did,” says Scott Abrams. As to the age
group that would get the most enjoyment from this book, Abrams says,
“Look, anybody can enjoy a book. It depends on what appeals to them, but
the target age is really eight to eleven and the reason for that is our
characters are eleven and twelve years old in the story. Children tend
to enjoy reading about older kids rather than younger kids. They would
look up to the eleven and twelve year olds if they are eight or nine or
ten, but a thirteen year old probably wouldn’t want to read about
younger kids. People have compared it to things like
The Goonies or some of the
Jules Verne books, so there is something in there for adults as well.” We agree with Abrams. We were hooked after the
first chapter and could hardly wait for each new chapter to unfold. If
you were a reader of adventure books when you were a young boy or girlTime
Sailors of Pizzolungo will take you right back to your childhood.
We wrongly
assumed that Pizzolungo was a factious village, but Scott Abrams says
that is not so, “Pizzolungo is a small, tiny village in Sicily. It is
rather an unspectacular, tiny, little village in Northwest Sicily. I
liked the name and although it is interesting. It is a tale with two
components that border on the science fiction realm, the growing ship
and the time travel, but almost everything else in the story is either
true or based on a lot of truth. All of the characters that the crew
meets as they sail the seas, back in 1497 are real people and a lot of
the description is fairly accurate. My major back in university was history, so I
have always been interested in history and I read a lot of history books
all of the time. The interesting component of going back in time for me
wasn’t the novelty of the science fiction element, but rather the story
that I could weave together with Adam, as the result of being back in
time already. Throughout the journey that the kids take they get to meet
a lot of luminaries from history, Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama
and many others who I won’t reveal now and those elements were really
exciting for me to write,” and you
can hear the enthusiasm in his voice as he says, “We did a lot of
research to be able to describe in the narrative the ships that they
were on, the costumes that they wore and the types of things that they
might have said or done back then.” As for the
setting he says, “Pizzolungo just happened to be right next to where the
story came to me or rather the experience that inspired the story. Also,
I checked on Google Earth for the type of topography that I needed to
fashion this type of story. There are a couple of scenes that require
that type of topography on the coastline.” Everybody knows
at least some of the characters in this book and that is why this book
instantly connects with both children and adults alike. “Guillermo
Infante is the main character and he is a twelve year old student in the
Pizzolungo elementary school. His father is a sea captain and he thinks
that he is the most glorious sea captain in the world, but actually he
is a very nondescript regular little ports man in a sense. Guillermo’s
sister is Piccolo, which in Italian means little and she is little, she
is the brains of the family. She is a very smart and precocious little
girl. She is always trying to be involved with her older brother’s games
at school and whatever he is doing. It is Guillermo’s dream to go out to
sea with his father and his father keeps telling him that it is going to
happen soon and you have the heart of a captain, but you are just a
little too small. In turn Guillermo tells Piccolo whenever she wants to
play with him, it’s okay, but you are still too small.
Guillermo unexpectedly receives a package in his
house with his name on it, but actually his father’s name is Guillermo
too and he is Guillermo junior and he mistakenly thinks that the package
is for him when it arrives at his house. What is in there is a ship that
has a warning sign that says it grows in water. His determination is to
find out if and how it grows and he sets out with his closest friends to
explore why this ship came and why it would grow, (as well as) what it
is all about. He is joined by four
other friends including his sister, Mario who is the somewhat
stereotypical fat little kid who is not as intelligent as the rest and
who always has his mind on food, but he is also in love with Piccolo,
which Guillermo regrets. Guillermo tries to come in between them any
time that he can. His name is Mario
Batali, somewhat inspired by the famous chef Mario Batali. There is Tony
Benetto who somewhat takes his name from Tony Bennett. He is the guy in
the group who is into tech and to some degree understands navigation, so
he becomes the ship’s navigator, as they go out to sea. Then there is
Enzo Bonaventura, which in Italian means good adventure. He is a kid
with a funny looking chin, but he is the sarcastic, wry or comic relief
guy in the crowd and the guy who always lightens up the mood even in a
very stressful moment. There is Luca Brizzi for Godfather fans,
obviously taken from Luca Brasi and he is the biggest guy in the group
and the toughest, but he is also a big wimp when it comes down to it,
because he is afraid of the water. That is the crew or the core team
that goes out to sea together. Piccolo is this
cute, eleven year old girl, so small in the room that sometimes she is
overlooked. Nobody pays her any credence in this little group of
accidental sailors. I won’t tell you how, but they end up out to sea in a
very unpredictable and unsuspected way. From the first moment that you
meet her you know she is a little different, because while everybody is
playing she is sitting working out the jumbo in the comic section of the
local newspaper. She speaks Latin and she has all of these little
skills. Nobody pays her any attention, but as she goes through the book
her character arc really comes into fruition. Ultimately everybody has
to depend on her for survival and to solve the greatest challenge that
they could ever have, which is getting home, once they have ventured too
far in many ways, both in terms of the past and distance,” says Abrams. For parents looking for a point of inspiration
for their daughters Time Sailors
of Pizzolungo does the trick, because the message is that little
girls can do everything the guys can do and do it just as well and at
times even better. Abrams agrees,
“That is exactly right. I will tell you an interesting story. I got a
letter from one reader and it was a mother who told me that she started
reading the book to her kids and she stopped at chapter two, because the
boys were so mean to Piccolo. (She said) that was unfair and it was not
nice. I wrote back and I apologized that she didn’t like it etc., but I
said that is the point, because in the end Piccolo proves everybody
wrong. She is the smart one, she is the shining star and ultimately she
is an inspiration for everybody else. It takes some time for everybody
to warm to that idea and to appreciate that. Piccolo becomes the star of
the book and every girl who reads the book comes back with the comment
that you did, it proves that girls can do anything.” The parents of
Piccolo and Guillermo play a minor role in the story and they are
presented as good, warm and loving parents. Scott Abrams’
own backstory serves as a perfect canvass for writing this adventure
book that is set in another country other than America where he was born
and grew up or Hungary where he now lives with his wife Annamaria and
their two daughters. He has traveled to almost seventy countries during
his lifetime. “I did take
little tidbits from all of my travels. They were little fun facts and
figures etc. and I interweaved them into this story. My favorite
countries in the world to travel to are Spain and Italy. The story is
largely based in Spain. Twenty years
ago I was sort of backpacking around Europe and I chanced upon Spain. I
really, really took to it quickly, the whole culture, the landscapes and
the vibrancy and since then I have visited Spain at least once or twice
a year for twenty years. A lot of the descriptions and the settings in
the story and some of the people are all real. It is in that sense
predicated on stuff that has happened to me in real life,” he says. Scott Abrams also wants you to know, “My wife
Annamaria played an enormous role in the storyline and with some of the
character development. Three or four of the absolutely the main features
of the book originated in her mind.
She was a great muse as we went about writing this book. I am not
going to divulge the ending, because there is a big surprise obviously
at the end, but the big ending idea came from (my wife). The codes that
the kids play with and have to work on to achieve their aims, a lot of
that stem from her ideas.” As for their
two daughters he says, “(My daughters) are too young for the story
unfortunately at this point. What was on my mind is when they are a
little older they can read the story that their father wrote. I thought
that would be cool.” The way that
Time Sailors of Pizzolungo
ends there is a definite hint of a sequel. “Hopefully,
there will be a sequel. With Adam I have already started outlining what
a sequel might look like. The problem is always finding time to actually
do it. We are slowly building up the storyline in the event we come into
some time and then we will write it,” he says. There have been
some other promising overtures as well, as Scott Abrams explains, “We
have received various expressions of interest from those associated with
the film world to possibly turn it into a movie or a television series
where each of the chapters would unfold in a separate episode. We are
hoping one of those works out. As we know, these are a one in a million
shots. It is a very visual story and everybody’s reaction seems to be
that this should be a movie.” The authors
have received letters from teachers who are using Time Sailors of
Pizzolungo in their literature and history classes for grades five, six
and seven. Abrams says, he also has noticed bulk sales of the book with
purchases of thirty to fifty books for a single purchase, which is
usually an indication that schools and / or libraries are ordering the
book. If you can only give one gift to your son, daughter, niece, nephew or grandchild then give them Time Sailors of Pizzolungo, so they can begin creating their own dreams. Please visit
The Time Sailors of Pizzolungo website.
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In
a world where children have video games, high definition televisions to
watch their favorite programs and parents take them to the cinema to
watch the latest and greatest movies; it takes a special parent to give
a child the gift of a book. Scott Abrams and Adam Blockton are the
co-authors of a remarkable children’s book,
Time Sailors of Pizzolungo.
It is a timeless and classic adventure book that will entertain children
and adults alike. More importantly this beautiful book stimulates the
imagination in a warm, positive fashion in a world in which our children
need to hear a message of hope and dream dreams of what someday might be
and that they might become.