Netherdeep Academy visits Byfleet Library

Today I stood in front of a room at Byfleet Library and watched something rather wonderful happen. Children who’d never read a word of Netherdeep Academy an hour before were reciting an oath together by the end of it, loud enough that I suspect the whole building heard “We are the children of the deep” ring out at least three times.

And it wasn’t just the children. Parents and grandparents stood at the back, just as caught up in it as the kids in the front row. That felt right. In the books, Netherdeep is a world where children and adults live side by side, each carrying their own part of the truth. For an hour this morning, the room worked the same way.

We talked about Morticus, the alien who conquered a planet without firing a single shot, simply by telling lies until nobody could tell truth from fiction any more. We talked about Diego, Emily and Jamaica, the three children chosen not because they were the strongest or the cleverest, but because they were brave enough to keep asking questions when every adult around them had stopped. Then we put it into practice. I told the room three things about their own library. Two were true. One wasn’t. Watching a six-year-old work out, on her own, which one was the lie and why, was worth more to me than any review the books have had.

Every single person in that room walked out with an honorary Academy badge pinned to them. Not because they’d read the books. Because they’d shown up, listened, and asked questions. That’s the whole point of Netherdeep, and it turns out it works just as well in a library in Byfleet as it does two hundred years underground.

If you run a school, a library, or a reading group and think your own readers would get something out of an hour like this, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Get in touch and let’s talk about bringing Netherdeep Academy to your readers next.