Author and Newsday columnist Debbie Jacob’s new children’s book, Nevile and The Lost Bridge, is the first of a trilogy she is writing for Hodder Educational Books.
Jacob said if the response is good, she hopes to develop it into a series.
The book is set in the Caribbean in 2222, in a world where children work and adults go to school.
The synopsis says, “Nevile and his friends Nina and AT are elite bridge-builders in the province of Aribbea, where children go to work, adults go to school, and everyone is ruled by a tyrannical king. No one remembers what life was like before the calamitous event which brought the king to power and enabled him to lock up all secrets and memory in his own library. Aribbeans now have no memory, and no understanding of the world outside the bridges on which they live.
“When Nevile, Nina and A T find themselves plunging from a bridge to the land and sea below, they have no idea what will befall them. Sometimes together, sometimes apart, each must make his or her way through the tests and challenges which await them, to find their true place and to begin to recover their history.
"Accompanied by a varied cast of companions, they encounter Pierre the Bacoo, Papa Bois, the rasta Hunn Dread, Hanuman the monkey and the last dog in Arribea. This motley crew succeeds in posing the first real challenge to his rule which the king has ever faced.”
Jacob said Nevile is deliberately spelt that way, as it plays into the plot.
She said some of the questions she wanted to ask in the book were: “What do friendship and loyalty mean? How do we know when we are safe, and what makes us so? Who can we trust?”
She said the themes explored in the book were based on her work as an educator, librarian, journalist, and prison reform activist.
“Children are not being taught the concepts of leadership, power, and abuse of power. Those concepts define us as a society.
"Kids aren’t being taught to ask questions. They are the powerless and voiceless in a society that isn’t producing a new generation of leaders.
"When I was teaching, I used to say education was wasted on the young, so maybe the adults should go to school and the children should work.”
She said in the book’s world, the protagonists don’t know that people live on land, so when Nina goes missing, and the boys have to go look for her, it’s a whole new world for them.
“Nevile is well-known as a bridge-builder, but when he’s taken out of his element, he has to think on his feet. He’s destined to be a leader, but he doesn’t know how to define that when he’s out of his element. The book explores topics like what is leadership, what is power and abuse of power, and how do we know our purpose in life?”
Jacobs said she hoped these important questions are answered in a fun, fast-moving story.
“I found when I was working as a librarian that children love good literature when it’s presented to them. They would come for fluff – but would like good stuff
