Meet Moley and the Mysterious Sea Turtles with Lewes author

“This is my second book about Moley, a toy mole, living in Sussex. In the first book Moley spent quite a long while stuck in a box, unwanted and unloved, only hoping about the better things to come. Considering that the first book came out in 2021, at the height of Covid lockdown, we all felt like Moley at that time. Now lockdowns are over we are all travelling again, and, naturally, Moley goes on a journey with his adoptive family too.

“And this holiday comes as a bit of a shock for a little mole. After spending his life in a box and, later, within one house and one garden, only once gathering his wits to cross a small country road, he is taken all the way across the ocean to Florida.

“Working in the field of mental health and psychology, I am very aware about the challenges that change presents to all of us, but particularly to young kids. I think many of them will be able to relate to Moley when he becomes anxious about one thing after another – the sorrow of being separated from his friends, the worry of losing his family at the airport, the fear of flying for the first time. He has many worries, but he overcomes them all. To tell you a secret – he uses a wide range of psychological techniques from mindfulness to CBT, but I tried to make them as inconspicuous as possible. I am sure that the young readers and their parents can learn a lot about Moley’s predicaments without realising that they are learning along the way. But it is not all about worries and fears of course. You don’t go to Florida without some really cool adventures.

“Moley meets a lot of locals – pelicans, crabs and even bats. He needs to make them all work together to protect a local endangered species – green turtles. And it’s not easy with predators, light pollution and human interference. There is a lot on Moley’s hands. Or should I say paws!

“I write what I call true stories. All the characters are real – the toys and animals alike. Moley lives at our house with us. We travelled to Florida and met all the animals I describe in the book there. And not only the animals. Humans too. The Turtle Watch really exists and tries to protect the turtles during their nesting season.

“I think the idea of protecting the planet and all the creatures living on it doesn’t need to be didactic or dull. I tried to raise these important issues in a fun way, through a story of adventures with tongue in cheek humour and laughter. At the end of the book the boy character, Ashley, even adopts a turtle through the WWF. I have no affiliation with WWF, but, if my book gives one family the idea of adopting an animal through them, I’ll be a happy person.

“I wanted to write as long as I remember, but it only came to me in the last ten years that what I want to write most were books for children. I live within easy distance from A A Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood and Kipling’s Batemans. I go every year to Tolkien’s and Lewis’ Oxford and search from London to Scotland for Harry Potter’s places. I think the very air of this land inspires me.”