I had the idea for The Unicorn Society a long time ago but someone said it was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard. Also, I was a serious writer who wrote all sorts of important stuff for adults, about the state of the world and all that. So I forgot about it...

Only I didn’t quite forget. And I still thought it was quite a good idea, a very good idea actually. So eventually I gave up on the serious stuff (for the moment) and decided to have a bit of fun writing a book for children. They call it middle grade, which means from the age of about eight and upwards. And have fun I did, and I hope you will too.

But there’s a serious side to it as well. In fact, two serious sides. It’s about animals that are extinct (or maybe not as extinct as everyone thinks) and there’s certainly plenty of that in the real world. In fact, a quick Google shows 99 per cent of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct. More are becoming endangered as you read this, including mighty beasts like the Sumatran tiger, so it’s right that children learn about it.

The other serious side is that in the book, the main character is Felicity and her mum dies just before the start, and she learns, sometimes the hard way, that now she will have to look out for herself a bit more. But there's always people around ready to help, no matter how hard that is.