You can find out more about Peta at the Kids' Book Review About page.
Peta Keown answers Kids' Book Review's 12 Curly Questions:
1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.
I love to sing.
2. What is your nickname?
Peta K
3. What is your greatest fear?
Personally: loss of purpose. Fear for the world: the people who make the most noise don’t always have the best ideas.
4. Describe your writing style in ten words.
Simple, precise, diverse, imaginative, absurd, even, ponderable, silly, warm, hopeful.
5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Committed, determined, generous, sharing, energetic.
6. What book character would you be, and why?
The Incredible Book Eating Boy, (by Oliver Jeffers). I love the idea of eating books.
7. If you could time travel, what year would you go to and why?
1880s, because I think bustles are hilarious.
8. What would your ten-year-old self say to you now?
Why are you still reading books for kids?
9. Who is your greatest influence?
Everyone teaches me something. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
10. What/who made you start writing?
Dad took me to bookshops all the time. The more I read, the more I wanted to write. Now I realise what a lucky child I was.
11. What is your favourite word and why?
Serendipity - serendipitous events are always such happy events.
12. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?
The Tree that Sat Down, Beverley Nichols. This children’s book was written in the 1940s, and I am so lucky that I discovered it in the 1980s. As a young reader, this book made a switch turn on in my head. It showed me how wonderful a book could be. I still love it.
