Interview: Annelies Judson talks about Turkey Hurly-Burly

Annelies Judson is a children’s poet and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Since winning a poetry competition in 2023, she has spent a lot more time writing, and probably not enough time sleeping. She writes articles and book reviews for The Sapling and has had poems published in online magazines. In 2024, she won the Storylines Joy Cowley Award for her manuscript Turkey Hurly-Burly. Annelies has many hobbies and interests, but writing is the only one she really takes seriously. She loves cooking, cricket and her kids (not in that order). Annelies used to ride a motorbike, play the flute and do gymnastics, though not all at the same time. She also has alopecia, but that’s neither hair nor there. Annelies talks to NZ Booklovers.

Tell us a little about Turkey Hurly-Burly.

The essence of the story is that a flock of pet turkeys get loose in a school and cause complete chaos. It’s really a cautionary tale to teachers about getting a classroom pet, haha. 

The story begins with the teacher character, Miss Burton, and some of her students. In what might be considered an ill-advised move, they decide to get turkeys as a class pet. Then everything goes to pieces, and the entire school gets involved in a huge turkey-student-teacher brawl on the school field. Eventually, the class manages to get things under control, but not before the turkeys have terrorised the entire school ground and eaten all the lunch deliveries for the day. What I love is that, despite being exhausted and covered in mud, Miss Burton spends the last moments of her day wondering which pet they should try next. What a woman.

What inspired you to write this book?

Funnily enough, it wasn’t turkeys, or pets, or anything at all obvious from the storyline! The truth is that I am a massive language nerd, and I set out to write a book that used a repeated “ur” sound (as in: turkeys, certain, girls). The original story was actually called Gertie Burt and Her Purple Shirt. In that story, Gertie had to go and tend to the class turkey. As I wrote I realised that the turkeys were by far the most fun and interesting part of the story, so Gertie and her shirt got dropped, and the turkeys took centre stage.

I have to confess though that I probably went a little too far with it at first. By trying to shoehorn “ur” words into as many places as possible, the original manuscript had quite challenging vocabulary. Penny, the editor at Scholastic, helped me to see that it was better to have a book that had more kid-friendly vocabulary than to be precious about keeping words like “concurred”!

One thing I love about the final version–-the one that became the book—is that the repeated sound is quite subtle. It appears on almost every spread, often multiple times, but I don’t think you’d notice that it appears especially often unless you were really analysing it.

Your manuscript for this book won the 2024 Storylines Joy Cowley Award! What was it like to win this prestigious award?

It’s an honour to win any award, but to win an award with Joy Cowley’s name feels particularly special. She is such a legend in Aotearoa children’s literature. (I recently discovered that she’s sold more than 40 million copies of her books around the world. That’s more copies than The Beatles album Abbey Road.) Not only that, but she was my favourite author as a child. I did a project about her when I was at primary school, and I even have a photo of her and me at a Meet The Author event from around 1995. 

I’ve been in touch with her recently after I sent her an invite to my book launch. She’s been extremely kind and gracious in her emails, and I feel so honoured to have had the pleasure of connecting with her.

Did you have to do much research about turkeys?

I went down various turkey-shaped rabbit holes throughout the course of writing the book. I have found out a lot more about turkey facial features than I expected or needed to. (Fun fact: the little dangly bit by their beak is called a ‘snood’.) I discovered that there are many, many more videos about turkeys than I dreamed possible. I have also practiced gobbling like a turkey more than I care to admit. None of this ‘research’ made it into the final book.

The one thing that I actually had to research I actually did quite a bad job of. I had seen somewhere on my internet travels that a male turkey was called a ‘jake’ and a female a ‘jenny’, so those are the words I used in the book. Originally in the story, the jenny laid eggs the day the class got the turkeys. But then my ever-vigilant editor Penny did some proper research and discovered that those are actually the names for juvenile birds, so we had to change the line to say that ‘it wasn’t soon before some eggs were laid’. I consider myself quite a diligent researcher, so I was a bit embarrassed to have not realised my mistake. Thank goodness for Penny, otherwise I might have ended up receiving angry letters from turkey experts from around the country!

What was it like to work with the illustrator Nikki Slade Robinson?

One thing that many people don’t realise is that authors and illustrators often work quite separately on a book. Scholastic approached Nikki to be the illustrator, and other than some very minor requests from my end, she had complete artistic control. The only real request that I made was to base the nurse character on my friend Mark, who works at my local hospital and was one of the first people to see me after my daughter was born (I didn’t see him though; I was asleep!). 

Because I had no real sense of how Nikki would choose to interpret the story, it was both extremely scary and completely joyous to open up Nikki’s first drafts. She did such a fantastic job of bringing my words to life. I adore her turkeys…they’re so full of character, and they make me smile every time I look at them. There are a couple of very Escher-esque illustrations of the flock of turkeys which I love too.

Nikki and I did “meet” (by email) after the process was finished though. She is a thoroughly delightful person and I’m really hoping we get to meet in person one day. It’s very helpful to have a real pro to talk to—she’s been amazing at suggestions for marketing and book launches. I feel very honoured to have my name on the cover with such an experienced and well-known illustrator.

If a soundtrack was made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include.

It’s a book filled with high-energy chaos, and my go-to music for chaos is ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’. Also, turkeys make me think of the rural United States, so I feel like a selection of upbeat bluegrass/banjo tunes might work well: think On My Way Back to the Old Home, The Racehorse Song, and Duelling Banjos.

What did you enjoy the most about writing this picture book for children?

The actual writing was quite hard work. I tried to calculate how long I had spent on the writing process and it’s at least 80 hours. That’s an average of eight minutes per word. That probably sounds ridiculous to people who aren’t writers, but it takes a long time to craft a picture book. And of course, that 80 hours is only the literal time spent in front of a piece of paper or computer: it actually took months and months, because you have to draft and re-draft, and adjust and re-draft again…

So the most enjoyable part was actually not the act of writing itself, but the process after that: seeing my words and Nikki’s pictures come together, working with Scholastic to finalise the layout and illustrations, doing all the copy-editing, making last-minute tweaks. At that point I got to step back and really enjoy the book as a whole. Plus there’s a real pleasure in having worked hard on something and then getting to reflect on that hard work and feel content that the work was worth it and that you’ve produced something that you’re really happy with.

But the true best part is not any of the writing process at all - it’s getting to read it to children for the first time. Because that’s what picture books are all about!

What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?

Stared into my empty inbox and wondered what I was going to do with all the extra hours in my life. Haha! Just kidding…I have four kids, there are no extra hours in my life. When the book was first sent off to the printer I didn’t really celebrate to be honest. I think I was too exhausted! It had been a very busy week of back-and-forth emails getting the final copy ready for printing. The real celebration was at my book launch in Tamaki Makaurau in August. So many family and friends came, as well as representatives from Storylines and Scholastic. I was very humbled by the turnout to be honest. People said lovely things about the book which is also very humbling. And best of all, I got to dress up as a turkey and perform the book to all the kids in the audience. Performing to kids is when I’m in my element. When I was younger I secretly wanted to be the next Suzy Cato. The problem is that Suzy Cato is the next Suzy Cato, so I’m having to forge my own path at the first Annelies Judson.

What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?

It’s not fair to ask me to choose just one! I’m going to be sneaky and choose one from each category. My favourite adult book this year has been Honeybee, by Craig Silvey. A beautifully written book, and one that is so relevant at the moment. My favourite teen book has been Kiri Lightfoot’s Bear. My favourite junior fiction was Red Rocks, by Rachael King, which I read with my older kids. It’s just been made into a TV series and I never watch a TV show or movie before I’ve read the book, so I told them we had to read it first! My favourite non-fiction book has been Showtime, about the LA Lakers in the 1980s. And my favourite picture book has been Hineraukatauri me Te Ara Pūoro. I can’t really say I’ve ‘read’ it as it’s all in te reo Maori, and my reo isn’t that good. But my goodness, what a book. It sounds beautiful, the illustrations are SO lush and unique, and it’s got an actual soundtrack you can listen to! It goes to show that you can enjoy a picture book on so many levels. You don’t even have to understand all the words! And it’s wonderful to see Maori publishing going from strength to strength in Aotearoa, which is great for us all: Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi. 

What’s next on the agenda for you?

I’m currently writing a teen novel in verse, so quite a shift in terms of vocabulary and content! I also have two junior fiction books that I’ve started and I’m determined to finish one before Christmas. A sequel to Turkey Hurly-Burly is a possibility too…I’m quite intrigued by what a pet llama might get up to!

Scholastic NZ