Would you risk the future to change the past? The Butterfly Club books by M.A. Bennett

The Butterfly Club books are about the ultimate kind of travel – time travel. They are about meeting like-minded people in other places. The series takes as its subject very well-known events, but largely unknown heroes.

Everyone has heard of the Titanic, but Guglielmo Marconi, whose wireless radio saved hundreds of lives on that doomed ship and countless lives over the following century, is unknown to many.  Everyone’s heard of Tutankhamun, and most people think that he was discovered by Howard Carter, but not many young readers will have heard of Abdel Rassoul, a boy their own age, who was actually the first person to discover the greatest archaeological find of all time. Most kids will have heard of the Mona Lisa, but most won’t know that the painting wasn’t famous at all until it was stolen in 1911 by a man named Vincenzo Peruggia, who thought that her smile could save his home country of Italy from defeat in the impending Great War. And the moon landings of 1969 are familiar to most, but many space fans won’t realise how close the Apollo 11 came to a fatal explosion on the moon’s surface, only averted by the brave men and women of Mission Control. 

Illustration copyright ⓒ David Dean 2022

One of my objectives in writing The Butterfly Club series was to bring these unknown characters out of the shadows and into the light. Hopefully more and more children will be made aware of their extraordinary lives. All the Butterfly Club books hinge on a theorem called The Butterfly Effect, a concept that states that the mere flap of a butterfly’s wings in one place can have a huge impact in another place far away. Each book focusses on one extraordinary real-life character from the past, who, in a small way, changed history. 

The second book in the series, THE MUMMY’S CURSE, revolves around a tiny action by a twelve-year-old boy, who stumbled on unimaginable treasure and changed the face of archaeology for ever.  The Butterfly Club, a Victorian society which uses time travel to plunder the future for wonders, have their eyes on a shiny new prize. In Egypt a man named Howard Carter searches for a lost king – Tutankhamun's mummy, rumoured to be the greatest archaeological prize of all time. Together with her friends, Konstantin and Aidan, and a clockwork cuckoo, Luna Goodhart boards the Time Train. The gang travel from Greenwich, London in 1894 to Egypt’s Valley of the Kings in 1922 in a race to uncover the mummy first. With the aid of famed author Arthur Conan Doyle, the time-travelling thieves dodge tomb traps and solve temple puzzles to locate the long-dead pharaoh. But as it turns out it is not the time thieves but Howard Carter’s waterboy, a twelve-year-old called Abdel, who stumbles on the top step of the long-buried tomb almost by accident. But when Abdel disturbs Tutankhamun's 3000 year sleep he wakes something else too – a deadly and ancient curse. And now all the time thieves must face the terrifying consequences of their actions...

And now for a writing challenge! And because I would never set a challenge that I wouldn’t take on myself, it’s one that I’ve already completed between the covers of THE MUMMY’S CURSE. I want you to imagine how you would feel if you were the first person to walk into Tutankhamun’s tomb after 3000 years. Would you feel excited? Adventurous? Or a little bit scared of what you have disturbed? How would you describe the golden treasure that awaits you? The smell of the ancient stone? The sand underfoot? Howard Carter, the famed archaeologist who has enjoyed credit for the discovery for all these years, actually acknowledged his waterboy Abdel as the discoverer of the tomb, and gave him a very precious pendant from the treasure chamber. How would you feel if someone put that pendant around your neck? Would it feel heavy? Cold? Would you feel like you deserved it, or that it wasn’t really yours? Or even that it was cursed?

Abdel Rassoul in Tutankhamun's pendant

Good luck with your own writing. And if you want to see how I did in the challenge, read THE MUMMY’S CURSE! 

I’ll leave you with this thought. There are plenty of huge things going on in the world at the moment and it’s easy for children (and adults too!) to feel small and insignificant. But the Butterfly Effect, and Abdel’s experience, reminds us that everything is connected, and maybe one day a small action that we take will have a big significance in the world.  

Marina Bennett x

Watch Marina's YouTube video on Tutankhamun by clicking here

M.A. Bennett was born in the north of England to an English mother and a Venetian father. She loved history so much she studied it at four different universities. She also studied art and worked as an illustrator, an actress and a film reviewer. Now she has her dream job of being a writer and her books have been translated into more than 20 languages. She lives in London - the home of Greenwich Meantime.

The Butterfly Club books for middle-grade readers are: The Ship of Doom (published 3 March 2022), The Mummy's Curse (published 13 October 2022), The Mona Lisa Mystery (to be published 13 April 2023) and The Trip to the Moon (to be published 12 October 2023)

The Butterfly Club books are published by Welbeck Flame, an imprint of Welbeck Children’s Books Welbeck Children’s Books and are widely available in bookshops and online.

You can follow Marina on Twitter: @MABennettAuthor

Titanic anniversary special by author Lindsay Littleton

This month is the 110^th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Titanic, so it seems like a good time to focus on the disaster and in particular, on what happened to some of the children who were on board the doomed ship. 

 

Titanic

The main characters in my historical novel, The Titanic Detective Agency, were both real-life passengers aboard the doomed ship. 12-year-old Bertha Watt was travelling in 2^nd Class with her mother and 14-year-old Johan Cervin Svensson was voyaging alone in 3^rd Class. Researching Bertha and Johan’s experiences on Titanic was fascinating, but there were so many incredible stories to tell, and I couldn’t fit them all in the book!

Here’s what happened to four young Titanic survivors.

One of the 3^rd Class passengers who survived on that terrible night was Jamilah Niqula Yarid, aged 14. She and her younger brother Ilyas had to use their own initiative and courage to survive the disaster.

 

Jamilah Niqula Yarid

Jamilah and Ilyas had boarded the ship at Cherbourg. Their father wasn’t allowed to travel as he had an eye infection, so the children were unaccompanied by an adult. On the night of the disaster, the two children were struggling to find a way to access the lifeboats and bravely decided to climb an external iron ladder all the way from the lower decks to the Boat Deck.

Ilyas Niqula Yarid

By the time the children completed their terrifying ascent, most of the lifeboats had gone, but thankfully, they were grabbed by a gentleman on deck, reputedly John Jacob Astor, and thrown into Collapsible Lifeboat C  (both Bruce Ismay and Billy Carter’s father were in this lifeboat). Once they reached New York on board RMS Carpathia, Ilyas and Jamilah were looked after by their older brother Isaac until their father was able to travel to the USA.

Billy Carter

Another child survivor, William Thornton Carter, was travelling in very different circumstances but had his own challenges on the night of the disaster. Billy, aged 11, was a 1^st  Class passenger aboard Titanic and was travelling in the height of luxury with his parents, older sister Lucile, three servants and his dog, an Airedale terrier.

On the night of the sinking, the boy was devastated when he was informed he’d have to leave his dog behind, and never got over the loss of his beloved pet. Then, while Billy and his mother were waiting to get into a lifeboat, a steward announced “No more boys!” Immediately, Billy’s mother took off her large hat and placed it on her son’s head. After the disaster, Billy’s mother filed for divorce, claiming unfairly that her husband had got on a lifeboat before ensuring his family was safe.

 

Ruth Becker

While Billy’s mother was determined to save her son during Titanic’s sinking, Ruth Becker’s mother was a little careless with her daughter’s safety! Ruth, whose father worked as a missionary in India, was travelling in 2^nd Class with her mother and two younger siblings, Marion and Richard. While the family waited on deck for a lifeboat, Ruth’s mother Nellie became worried when she saw that the younger two children were shivering in the cold.  She told Ruth to go back down to their cabin and get some blankets. While Ruth was doing as she was told, an officer on deck noticed little Marion and Richard and threw them into a lifeboat. Nellie got into the lifeboat with the children and it was beginning its descent down the side of the ship when Ruth arrived back on deck with the blankets. Luckily, Ruth was able to get on to another lifeboat and was reunited with her mother and siblings on RMS Carpathia.

 

Albion House, Liverpool - when news of the disaster reached the offices of the White Star building, officials were too afraid to leave the building and instead they read the names of the
dead from the balcony

Of course, tragically, not all the children on Titanic survived the disaster. On the night of the sinking, being  a 3^rd Class passenger was a real disadvantage. The 3^rd Class cabins were situated on the lower decks and all the lifeboats were on the upper decks, closer to the 1^st and 2^nd  Class cabins. Also, there were gates on the ship designed to separate areas meant for different classes, and while the evidence is unclear, it’s possible that some of these gates stayed closed during the sinking. Many of the 3^rd Class passengers didn’t speak English, but no efforts were made by the White Star Line to ensure that all their passengers knew what to do in the event of an emergency: there were no written instructions in other languages and no lifeboat drills. On that terrible night, events were so chaotic it must have been almost impossible for 3^rd Class passengers to work out what they should do and where they should go - I expect many hoped that the lifeboats, several of which were lowered half-empty, would stop at the lower decks to enable 3^rd Class passengers to board, but that didn’t happen. 

Altogether, there were 128 children aged 14 and under aboard RMS Titanic, including two young members of crew, plate steward Frederic Hopkins and bellboy William Watson, both of whom died in the disaster. 59 child passengers died, and almost all of those children were travelling in 3^rd Class.

Thankfully, changes were made to maritime law after RMS Titanic’s sinking to prevent a similar tragedy ever happening again. Both the British and American Boards of Inquiry ruled that ships should carry sufficient lifeboats for everyone on board, that lifeboat drills should be mandatory and that 24-hour radio contact must be maintained.

The Titanic memorial in honour of all the heroes of the marine engine room, Liverpool

Writing challenge

Imagine you are one of the four child survivors whose Titanic experiences are described in this blog. Write a short account, from their point of view, of what happened to them on the night of the sinking.

I was fast asleep in the cabin when ….

Lindsay Littleson is a qualified primary teacher and lives in the village of Uplawmoor, near Glasgow.

In 2014 she began writing for children and won the Kelpies Prize for her first children’s novel The Mixed Up Summer of Lily McLean. The sequel, The Awkward Autumn of Lily McLean, was published by Floris Books in 2017 and Guardians of the Wild Unicorns came out two years later. 

Guardians of the Wild Unicorns was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for both the Stockton Children’s Book Prize and East Sussex Children’s Book Prize.

Her latest novel with Floris Books, Secrets of the Last Merfolk, came out in 2021. 

 

Littleson has also written two historical books for children, A Pattern of Secrets, set in Victorian Paisley, and The Titanic Detective Agency, both published by Cranachan Books. Her latest novel with Cranachan, The Rewilders, was published in March 2022. 

Website: https://lindsaylittleson.co.uk/

Publisher : https://www.cranachanpublishing.co.uk/product/the-titanic-detective-agency/

Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-titanic-detective-agency/9781911279440?aid=2496

twitter: @ljlittleson 

Instagram: @lindsaylittleson