Price £4.99
ISBN 0 340 80519 6
Published by Hodder Bite 2001
www.bookswithbite.co.uk
Purchase on Amazon.co.uk

Anna Goldsmith has moved with her family from her posh school in Surrey to a small Yorkshire town and the local comprehensive. Anna worries she won’t fit in – she’s a bit too brainy and her accent sticks out a mile. But Anna’s got everything going for her - she’s attractive, sporty and musical – and Hayley Parkin, the most popular girl in their year, wants to be her best friend. So Anna reckons she’ll be fine. Except that Hayley – charming and gorgeous with a year-round tan - is not all she seems. Soon she’s playing power games - freezing Anna out one minute and then nice as pie the next. Anna is totally confused. As the school year progresses Hayley’s behaviour gets more erratic and the sarcastic remarks get more personal until Anna is sliding into depression and despair. Melanie – her other best friend – tries to understand, but she’s caught in the middle and Hayley’s playing games with her as well. Can Mel help Anna before she goes and does something really silly…

‘ This book was breath-taking!’ Amazon Customer Review

‘I recommend this book to anyone – it rules!’ Amazon Customer Review

‘Gripping, realistic, intense, excellent, brilliant. I couldn’t put it down!’ Ashton, NEBA Judge

‘The humanity of the protagonists really shines through in the expert characterisation and writing, making this novel really challenge the reader’s empathy.’ The Bookseller

‘…A powerful novel of bullying and betrayal…’ Books for Keeps

‘Sue Mayfield’s intense novel unspools at a breakneck pace…’ Publishers Weekly

Blue won the 2003 North East Book Award and was nominated for the 2002 Carnegie Medal.

It is published in the USA as Drowning Anna (Hyperion 2002).

The idea for Blue began with a newspaper article I read about a bright 16 year old who had committed suicide just before her brilliant GCSE results came out. Her family were at a loss to understand why such an attractive and talented girl – who clearly had everything going for her – should want to end her own life. Then it emerged that she had been systematically bullied by someone at school…

I became interested in bullying – and especially the kind of bullying that is subtle, psychological and often invisible. The sort of bullying that consists of words, silences, taunts and looks – and the way it corrodes your self-esteem. How could someone’s sense of self be so undermined and shredded by other people that they didn’t want to live anymore? I approached a local school where I had previously worked with the English department and asked if I might explore some ideas. Seven Year 9 girls volunteered to work with me in their lunchtimes. Some of them had been bullied themselves. Some were just interested. I asked them Who gets bullied? Who bullies them? Why? What does it look like? How do adults respond? They talked and I listened. They told me about family pressures, about peer groups, about hostility campaigns and self-harm. As I built up a picture of some of the dynamics at work, the three characters of Anna, Hayley and Melanie began to emerge. I went back to my seven colleagues and tried out the characters. Together we pieced together a plot that seemed plausible, involving an escalating cycle of incidents that – in their opinion – rang true. Two friends – a doctor and a health visitor – helped me with all the medical stuff and I set about writing a first draft of the book.

I decided to start at the end of the story and work backwards. I also decided to weave together three distinctive strands of narrative. Most of Blue is narrated in the first person by Anna’s friend Melanie. Then there are extracts from Anna’s diary, which enable me to give Anna a ‘voice’ even though she is in a coma throughout the book. Thirdly there are short bursts of third-person present-tense narrative. These passages record things happening to Anna now (mostly unpleasant medical things!) a bit like a rolling CCTV camera . I tried to write these sections in as clinical and impersonal a style as possible. The three different narrative voices are printed in different fonts to make it clear who is ‘speaking.’

When I’d finished the first draft the seven students (who were by then in Year 10!) each read it and scribbled their responses all over the manuscript. In the light of their comments I did a lot of rewriting – especially of the ending which they all hated first time around! The end result was a book that felt very collaborative and which I hope rings true.
I’ve had some very moving letters from readers who’ve said the book has touched a chord with them. One girl said:

‘ I read it straight through. I even read it when I was eating my lunch! I really understand how Anna felt…it made me think about my actions and how they affect people.’
Writers can’t ask for more than that!

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