Most people just want a good protagonist

The American author of children's books, on espionage novels and honouring his ancestors in his work

- Chintan Girish Modi

How did you end up creating this character called Max and the kind of fictional universe that he is part of? I have known for a long time that I wanted to write about Kindertransport, which was an effort to get Jewish children out of Nazi Germany in 1938 and '39. A close friend of my family – a brilliant music critic named Michael Steinberg – was one of the children on the Kindertransport. He was taken away from his mother in 1938, and to England, where he lived for eight years, not knowing whether she had survived the war. I knew the story and what an amazing thing it was, but didn't know how to tell it in a way that was fit for children. Engaging with a serious subject in a fitting way is crucial. If children don't want to turn the pages, what is the point of me writing anything difficult or complex? They will never see it.