Interview: Ruth Paul talks about Ghost Kiwi

Ruth Paul is an award-winning author and illustrator, with titles Stomp!, Bad Dog Flash, Bye-Bye Grumpy Fly, My Dinosaur Dad, My Meerkat Mum and the popular Mini Whinny series among her Scholastic collection. Her books have been published in NZ, Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, China and Korea. Scholastic titles The King’s Bubbles and Lion Guards the Cake have both won best Picture Book at the NZ Children’s Book Awards.

Now turning her hand to longer work, Ghost Kiwi is Ruth’s first middle-grade fiction. Ruth talks to NZ Booklovers about her new book.

Tell us a little about Ghost Kiwi.

The story is about 11-year-old Ruby who finds herself temporarily living in a treehouse with her dog, while Matua Kiwi hatches a rare white chick in his burrow nearby. Along with her best friend, Spider, Ruby courageously steps up to protect the chick when a couple of unscrupulous locals try to capture and sell it. Told from both Ruby and Matua Kiwi’s points of view, it’s a  little bit sad, a little bit funny, and most of the characters are more than a little bit different. Much of the story takes place at night, and explores that intangible line where the real world and the unseen touch, resulting in an explosive ending where the children (and Kiwi) emerge victorious.  

What inspired you to write this book?

We have planted 20Ha of native trees to add to the existing bush in the catchment where we live in Mākara, a rural area not far out of Wellington. In 2020 the Capital Kiwi Project announced plans to rewild the western hills of Te Whanganui-a-Tara with kiwi, and in 2022 (after a huge trapping effort across the area) kiwi were released. From that point on they started to inhabit my mind as much as the whenua, and I wrote a picture book about Anahera, one of the matriarch breeding kiwi from Ōtorohanga. But a picture book is only 700 words or less. So all the extra words, thoughts and facts had to go find another place to live, one where they could multiply and spread out. Hence: Ghost Kiwi. 

What research was involved?

I did lots of research about kiwi, for both books, but they are still quite mysterious creatures in many ways. I was in Dunedin doing the late Otago University CNZ Creative Writer in Residency Fellowship at the Robert Lord Cottage when I started writing it, and I got some great advice from Associate Professor Caroline Beck, a developmental biologist who was kind enough to meet me and answer a number of bizarre questions about kiwi-genetics and leucism etc. Much of the other stuff comes from being part of a rural community and little ideas stored up over the years. 

What was your routine or process when writing this book?

I am a disorganised but very obsessive writer, it turns out. I kind-of felt my way into the story, like I was in a completely dark room and moving around with my arms out to find the walls. In short, I did everything wrong and took twice as long as I should have to come up with a decent plot. But I always had my main character, Ruby, and her dog. I think I put all the sadness I feel about not having a dog  (because, you know, I have kiwi instead now) into writing a dog I could love. There are good things that come from not knowing what you’re doing, but then you have to bring a certain discipline to it to make it comprehensible to others. I am ever-grateful to my early-reader friends who were kind and gentle with me while offering useful critiques. 

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

Wow -  I think it would have to be a funky kiwi rap-song that samples Beyonce. Unfortunately it will never exist because no-one can afford to sample Beyonce. 

If your book was made into a movie, who would you like to see playing the lead characters?

Local casting all the way! I think John Leigh could do a good Rex. But as for the kids? They have yet to be discovered. 

What did you enjoy the most about writing Ghost Kiwi?

The full immersion into both the story and the world. I was like a dog with a bone, even I found myself quite hard to live with while I was writing it. 

What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?

Nothing. I just worried about it. I made a thing, which is a small victory for me, but I have no idea if it’s any good. 

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

So many!!!! For now, I’m only going to list a few: The Book of Guilt (Catherine Chidgey); Prophet Song (Paul Lynch); The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley); Preistdaddy (Patricia Lockwood).

What’s next on the agenda for you?

I’m collaborating with others and writing a children’s play! It’s quite meta because I’m in it. Hopefully all will all come together and turn up in front of an audience sometime next year. 

Scholastic NZ