11 Aug 2011 02:03:17
From battling cannibals to wrestling crocodiles, capturing two-headed snakes to riding whales, Price's much-loved Adventure series ran to 14 books, written by the natural historian between 1949 and 1980. Now McGowan, author of young adult novels including Henry Tumour and The Knife That Killed Me, has been commissioned by the Willard Price estate to write four new books in the children's series, starring the children of the original characters in a contemporary setting.
The first, with a working title of Leopard Adventure, will see Hal's son Fraser and Roger's daughter Amazon meet for the first time, before sending them off on an adventure to save the rare Amur leopard. Fans of the original titles will be surprised to learn that brothers Hal and Roger, who enjoyed a close relationship as teenagers, sent off as they were by their father to capture animals alive for zoos, have fallen out in the new books.
"Hal Hunt has set up this organisation which goes around the world saving species and his son Fraser works with him on that. He's fallen out with Roger who's a freelance conservationist – there's some sibling rivalry there. Hal's slightly hand in hand with big business, he's slightly compromised, and Roger's more of a free spirit," said McGowan, a fan of the Price novels as a child. "Roger and his wife have disappeared [and] because Amazon's parents have gone missing, Fraser comes to meet her."
The first book will be published by Puffin next summer, to mark the 125th anniversary of Price's birth on 28 July. The author, who died in 1983, based his children's books on his own adventurous life, which saw him travel the world on expeditions for the National Geographic Society and the American Museum of Natural History.
Although in the original books Hal and Roger would "take animals alive" for delivery to zoos, in McGowan's sequels Fraser and Amazon will be conservationists, with other targets to include the rare spirit bear and a giant snake.
"This is quite different to what I've done before. I'm a big fan of Willard Price and I've been an animal person all my life: this is my first chance to write about them. On the whole I go for edgy humour in my teenage books, and body comedy in my younger books. This is much more action-oriented – the adventure comes first," said McGowan. "With the originals you get a brilliant balance between adventure and learning – Price hooks the reader and feeds him knowledge along the way. I'm trying to keep that."
"Shortly before he died in 1983, Willard Price said, 'My aim in writing the Adventure series for young people was to lead them to read by making reading exciting and full of adventure. At the same time I want to inspire an interest in wild animals and their behaviour'," said Zoe Watkins of FourteenFiftyFour, whose subsidiary Willard Price Literary Management Ltd owns the Willard Price estate. "We're delighted to be working with Anthony McGowan on this exciting new series which continues this aim by bringing the wildlife adventures of the Hunt family right into the present day."
