Cork author launches children's book about catastrophe-prone girl

MILLY’S intentions are usually good, but when she washes her neighbour’s car for free, how is she to know that a pot scourer will take off paint as well as dirt?

When she helpfully takes a parcel that the postman has left on the front step of that same neighbour’s house and posts it through that neighbour’s letterbox, Millie cannot predict that their dog would rip it open, “and that a full tube of fake tan is practically impossible to remove from cream carpet and white poodle fur”.

So what could possibly go wrong when Milly and her classmates at Scoil Eoin, a Gaelscoil in the fictional Cork town of Ballybrogin, visit Fota Wildlife Park?

The trip is their prize for winning an all-Ireland climate action competition, also putting them in with a chance of earning a coveted Green Flag, thus keeping up with the achievements of neighbouring school St Gobnait’s. This, it should be noted, is particularly important to Milly’s príomhoide, whose twin brother - technically his big brother, having been born two minutes before him - is the principal of St Gobnait’s.

Milly could not, of course, be held in any way responsible for the chaos that begins to unfold as soon as she and her classmates arrive at Fota. She is not to blame for the butterfly breakout, the giraffe drama, and especially not for the unfortunate incident on Monkey Island, all of which raise fears that the school could lose its precious Green Flag before it even arrives.

Despite having a magnetic attraction for mayhem, 10-year-old Milly is a charismatic character, full of inquisitiveness and with an irrepressible enthusiasm for whatever comes into her head at any given moment.

Her own idea for the climate action competition, for instance, seems perfectly reasonable, at least to Milly herself, as she pipes up with: “What if we adopt an endangered animal, like a snow leopard or a white rhino, and keep it in the gym and look after it so it doesn’t become extinct, and then when it has babies, we could release them into the wild, like somewhere in West Cork, and save the entire species?”

Foiled by the fact that the school would have nowhere to hold its céilí every Wednesday - and the príomhoide’s aversion to school pets after an unfortunate incident with a hamster - West Cork remains free of roaming snow leopards and white rhinos but Milly’s bright ideas continue undimmed.

Released yesterday, Milly McCarthy Is A Complete Catastrophe is the first children’s book from Bandon author Leona Forde, a UCC English and history graduate who now teaches those subjects to teenagers at Kinsale Community School.

The mother of four children, she says the book was inspired by her daughter Asha, “who may or may not have once accidentally plucked a peacock at a certain wildlife park”.

The impetus to write initially came about as a result of Leona’s teaching career, when as part of the new Junior Cycle course, teachers were offered workshops in a variety of arts disciplines and she used the opportunity to pursue a creative writing course.

Leona says she wrote the book for her daughter, who wanted a Wimpy Kid-style story that was not set in the US or UK, and she has certainly succeeded in putting a Cork stamp firmly on her debut novel, which already has a sequel, Milly McCarthy And The Irish Dancing Disaster, in the making.

The owner of two rowdy rabbits and a house that is “never, ever tidy”, Leona says when she is not reading, writing, or chasing the rabbits, she likes to crochet, craft, and drink coffee, often all at the same time. Sure, what could possibly go wrong?

Leona Forde will be signing copies of Millie McCarthy Is A Complete Catastrophe tomorrow, Saturday March 4, at 11.30am at Bandon Books in the Riverview Shopping Centre, Bandon.

She and Dublin-based illustrator Karen Harte will also appear at an author reading event for children on Saturday, March 11, 3pm, at Waterstones on Patrick Street, Cork. Waterstones have also reinstated their Saturday story time for younger children at noon each week, as well as their Young Adult Book Club on the last Saturday of every month at 3pm.