Glassborn

Plenty of Brontë references and inspiration in this 9+ book:

Glassborn 

Peter Bunzl 

Usborne Publishing

ISBN:9781801313681

November 2023

Fairy Tree tall and grand, open a path to Fairyland. The year is 1826, and the four Belle siblings arrive at their new home - Fairykeep Cottage. Here Acton, the youngest member of the family, discovers a hidden key that opens a door into Fairyland. But when he ventures through, he's kidnapped by the Fairy Queen's servants. Cora, Elle and Bram set out on a quest to rescue their brother. But Fairyland is
full of dangers...and to overcome the Fairy Queen they will need all their courage, cunning and a great deal of hope. 

An enthralling tale of magic and mystery, from the bestselling author of The Cogheart Adventures. 

The Yorkshire Post interviews the author: 

When Peter Bunzl picked up a copy of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre a decade ago, little did he know it would spark the idea for a children’s book inspired by the lives of one of the country’s most famous literary families.

With a new interest in the history of the Yorkshire sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne - and their brother Branwell, Bunzl found himself fascinated by the imaginary realms the siblings created as children.

“I just thought that was really interesting and exciting," he explains. “That was the genesis of the idea for [my latest book] Glassborn, hearing about their childhood and how they were writing long before they were published writers. I loved their imagination.”

“They would make up stories of their own, about the various places they imagined,” he continues. “They would write these stories down as tiny newspaper articles, or in miniature books so small you’d need a magnifying glass to read them.”

With the idea for Glassborn beginning to blossom, Bunzl visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, where the siblings once lived. There, he was inspired to bring objects from the museum’s collection into his own story, and to set it in a house similar to the parsonage itself.

That wasn’t the end of Brontë inspiration for the book. Bunzl has also named his characters – Cora, Bram, Elle and Acton – by drawing on the family and the sisters’ androgynous pseudonyms – Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. “I thought it was a fun way to reference back to the Brontës,” Bunzl says. (Laura Reid)