Coosan teacher releases debut children’s novel

A local primary teacher has released his first children's novel which is set to be the first in a five-part series.

James Hannon from Coosan wrote 'The Thrilling Adventures of an Extremely Boring Boy' during lockdown and is currently working on his second novel.

James's debut novel centres around the main character of Barry Dunphy who just wants to live in a normal world which is impossible because he lives in the Midlands town of Ballinacrack which is the adventure and superhero capital of the world. Everyone in the town goes missing which delights Barry at first but he soon realises that he needs to go on an adventure to sort everything out.

Speaking about how he first thought of the idea for the story, James said: “The title of the story came into my head and just the juxtaposition between the two things kind of gave me a little bit of a giggle. I wrote the first three chapters to kind of get a feel for it. Then, I started outlining the rest of the story and I wrote the first draft in about four weeks.”

The former Marist College student has always loved reading and writing and first began writing the novel in 2021. “I kind of had a feel for the main character and the setting," he explained.

James was also lucky enough to have instant access to the book's target audience as he is a primary school teacher at St Joseph’s National School, Summerhill. “Last year I was teaching sixth class and I would give them chapters of the book to get their feedback and from that I wrote another version.”

James added: “Their feedback was very positive and the things they didn't like they weren't supposed to like them." He explained: "They didn't like a bad guy or they didn't like something sad that happened in the story but that's the response that I was looking for.”

The Coosan native also said teaching has influenced his writing over the past ten years, especially seeing what children find funny.

James has just finished writing the first draft of the second book in the series and said that he will also be looking for feedback from his sixth class students with this. “I'll be giving that to some of the kids that are avid readers. Their feedback will be quite important to me.”

The primary teacher said he has the story outlined for the five-part series. “The second one was really fun because I had the world already built. It's different but there are elements that people will remember from the first one.”

In the upcoming second novel in the series, the story will focus on a new character called Saoirse who will come against Barry. “They're going to come up against each other. He's not the bad guy, she's not the bad guy.”

James described Saoirse's character as a Robin Hood style thief. “She's going to Ballinacrack to steal something so obviously that puts her in opposition with Barry.”

James enjoyed reading Harry Potter and Darren Shan books as a child. “I always loved writing fiction because I'm a big reader. My uncle Tomás would always give me books for Christmas and for my birthday. What I loved about that was I never knew what book I was going to get.”

“I've never had any sort of writer's block because I have a fairly strong imagination. I can come up with ideas fairly quickly. It's always just about putting those ideas down.”

The local writer continued: “When I really started taking the writing seriously was during the first pandemic because I was reading a lot of books about writing. I made sure that I gave myself a small milestone.” James set himself a target to write at least 100 words per day and nearly always wrote beyond that. He also wrote many short stories during the first lockdown in 2020.

James takes inspiration for his writing from Harry Potter, Dungeons and Dragons and various TV shows. “In my story there's multi-dimensional travel and looking back I'm sure there's an influence there from something like Rick and Morty (Netflix adult animated science-fiction sitcom.) He also cited Marvel comic books and manga (Japanese) comic books as influences.

The book was illustrated by Fiona Moran who James said did “a brilliant job. We worked on it together and she did a bit of concept art of what the characters would look like and then I signed off on that. I think we worked really well together and she's going to definitely be working on the second book too.”

James originally planned for the book to have 36 chapters before deciding to split some chapters upon the advice of his editor Liz Hudson. “I was thinking that I would have shorter chapters (for the children) but Liz was writing that it's best to end on a cliffhanger.”

Speaking about the genres of writing he enjoys, James stated: “I think my bread and butter will always be the sci-fi and fantasy. I would kind of like to do some sort of political thriller.”

The St Patrick's College graduate would also like to dabble with action stories that are “more based in reality” similar to the John Wick comic books and films.

'The Thrilling Adventures of an Extemely Boring Boy' can be purchased from Amazon or from James's website at ballinacrack.com with rare covers and special signed first editions on offer. For between €12 to €15.

James is the son of John Hannon from Clonown and Pauline Hannon née McManus from Coosan.