In The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association (Titan, May), the bestselling fantasy author explores the trials of parenting magically gifted children.
What drew you to the magical school subgenre?
I read a ton of magical school books growing up. The elephant in the room, of course, is Harry Potter. I’m not exactly happy with how Rowling has turned out to be a horrible human being, but the books were important to me. I think most kids like the idea of being plucked out of mundane reality and finding out they have fabulous magical powers. Then I became a parent. Suddenly my perspective is really different. Magical school books are always about the kid getting whisked away to this magical world, but I would not be cool with that. This is a book for everyone who grew up reading these things and now they’re parents and they’re looking back like, “No, I would not sign the permission slip for hippogriff riding lessons. Are you insane?” There’s something inherently hilarious about the idea of what a magical school would be like on a practical level, from the parent’s perspective.
Why focus on the PTA?
Some of my inspiration was Hogwarts, but some of it was Big Little Lies. I read Big Little Lies while going through some particularly challenging PTA drama at my son’s school, and I remember nearly having a panic attack because it was resonating so hard. We’ve absolutely had ridiculously long conversations about whether kids are allowed to take their coats off at recess, to the point where it was just absurd. But we’ve also had PTA meetings around active shooter drills. There’s an inherent tension with anything to do with school
in that, on one hand, some of the stuff is so petty. Kids get upset over ridiculous things and people get political over ridiculous things. At the same time, it’s incredibly high stakes, because you’re trying to protect and advocate for this tiny person who isn’t very good at
protecting or advocating for themselves.
What’s your approach to social satire?
No one likes being lectured. Nobody likes to be told, “You should think this thing,” but humor is a way to get under people’s defenses and then make a point. It’s also fun. We’re living in some really stressful times, and you can either laugh or you can cry. I’m not saying that, you know, we can’t cry too, but the laughing does help.
What message do you hope to leave readers with?
dedicate this book to the educators who have been working with my son. Being a parent in modern America is immensely stressful, and a lot of the frustrations come through in the book, but being an educator is even more stressful. I just want to be clear that this is not intended as a criticism. It’s intended in love.
