In anticipation of World Book Day (3rd March 2022) and to inspire your little troopers we have interviewed 8-year-old author Darcy Thorp. Darcy won our September Stories competition and her story Evie’s Christmas Surprise can be found exclusively on our Little Troopers Treasures app.
Hi Darcy, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Darcy and I am 8 years old. I live in Thetford with my Mum & Dad, little brother Oliver and our dog Max. All my other family live 3hours away. My Dad is in the RAF Regt which is how I found out about Little Troopers.
How did you come up with the idea for Evie’s Christmas Surprise?
It was nearly Christmas when my mum saw the competition so I decided to write a Christmas story. I wanted it to be quite true so I wrote about a little girl who’s Dad goes away with work. My Grandad once dressed up as Santa one year to surprise me and my cousins so I thought it would be nice to include this in the story.
Has your Dad ever been deployed?
My dad hasn’t been away for longer than 2weeks since I was 6months old but he’s going away in March for 4months. I will be sad when he goes but I will write to him just like Evie did.
What was it like having your story professionally illustrated?
I was so excited and I loved showing everyone it, I felt very proud and loved being in the newspapers too. I was asked to do the assembly at school with my head teacher and we read my story. I’m going to go dressed as Evie to school on world book day, I can’t wait.
What do you hope other military children will think when reading your story?
I really hope that they enjoy it and I hope they will think it has a happy ending when Evie’s dad comes home.
What do you like about writing?
I like to be able to sit quietly in my room and at school and pretend to be someone else and to write about them and to make stories up.
Do you think you’ll write any other stories?
I hope so, my mum bought me a story writing book for Christmas that gives you ideas for stories. When my daddy goes away, I might write him some stories to send out to him.
What advice would you give to other little troopers who want to become authors?
This was the first story that I had ever written and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t think that I would win the competition so I would say if you want to write a story then you should.
What’s your favourite book?
At the moment I am reading The World’s Worst Teacher by David Walliams. I really like his books and I have read a few.
We hope you enjoyed hearing more about Darcy. Please don’t forget that you can find Evie’s Christmas Surprise on our special app Little Troopers Treasures. If you want to read other books for little troopers check out our own collection written by Donna David. There are specific books for the Army, Navy and RAF or you could buy all three and donate them to your local library.
