“The storm was such a character already, it was just a matter of putting myself in that place with the goose (and the other animals) and describing what I saw,” Courage says. Instead, Courage shows their fears, their anxieties, and their wounds. Storm Blown features a goose, a turtle, and a petrel (a tubed-nose seabird), but not just as background figures. I don’t think I wanted to put kids in peril, but it’s just part of good children’s literature.”Ĭourage also wanted to show what happens to animals when hurricanes and other natural disasters strike. “Kids literature, and all good literature, has that element of life and death. Nick Courage “I realized after I finished Storm Blown that if you flipped them, Storm Blown could have been the prequel to the dystopian aftermath of The Loudness,” he says. Both are torn from parents or caregivers during the storm.Īs in his debut novel, The Loudness, Courage illustrates the natural resilience of young people when they are faced with daunting circumstances. territory in 2017 - and centers around Alejo and Emily, two pre-teens separated by the Gulf of Mexico, but bound by horrific circumstances. Storm Blown is set in Puerto Rico and Louisiana - eerily, Courage finished the story right before Hurricane Maria ravaged the U.S. “But when I was growing up, you really didn’t hear about what was happening in the islands on its approach … I wanted to tell the story of a hurricane from beginning to end, the animals it affects, the people it affects, and how it brings people together.”

“In the United States, you hear a lot about New Orleans and the damage a hurricane does in the area the reporting is coming from,” says Courage.

He didn’t land on a particularly fond memory, but one that caused no small amount of anxiousness when he was growing up in New Orleans: hurricanes.Ĭourage, who lives in Brookline and is a co-founder of the literary website Littsburgh, wanted to tell a story about a natural disaster from multiple locations and perspectives in his new YA novel, Storm Blown (Delacorte), which was published on July 16. Click to enlarge While casting about for an idea for his second young adult novel, author Nick Courage turned to his youth.

Storm Blown by Nick Courage