Keeping Swashbuckling Alive

I've always wanted to write an alien book, so I think I'll write one of those. And I'd like to do some serious kind of social books—novels. I have an idea for a kid who is on his own and ends up on the street. Of all the tragedies of the world, the saddest thing for me is when the kid is on the street, be he in South Africa or Ireland or wherever. It's very difficult to be a kid these days in urban areas. I'm working on a few screenplays with my brother, Eamonn. And I'm working on the lyrics to a musicale with two friends from home.

How do you come up with names like Artemis Fowl and Conor Broekhart?
I really am a sucker for a good name. It doesn't have to be a weird name. It can be something like Tom Sawyer--or Captain Hook. I know where the character [in "Airman"] would come from. His family would have been either Flemish or Dutch. I looked through Web sites of old names from the Flemish Dutch. And my own family is Flemish Dutch. I found the name Broekhart, and I thought oh, my God. It's a hero, but also it hints at broken heart. I have a cousin whose name is Conor. I think he's 14, 15, so I used that name for him. Artemis was originally Archimedes, because I wanted a classic Greek name that would have an air of intelligence and genius about it. But I thought people would think it's a book about Archimedes. Artemis was the goddess of hunting. But the name was sometimes, very seldom, given to boys as kind of an honorific if their fathers were great hunters. Fowl was because there's an Irish name Fowler, and fowl sounds like foul. Because he's nasty, or he was in the beginning. It's the nasty hunter basically.

You and your wife are former teachers. You taught fifth and sixth grade for 15 years! How did teaching help you learn to write a good story that kids like?
I used storytelling as a teaching method a lot. If I taught a history lesson through storytelling, there was much more chance that the kids would hang onto a few of the facts. If you're giving a lesson, you could liven it up. You could have a battle. You could dramatize it. I learned quickly what kids like and didn't like. They didn't like it if you were trying to ram home the moral message. You just kind of hint at it.

What are your own favorite books to read--then and now?
One of my childhood favorites was "The Princess Bride." Read that to see how I was influenced by his pacing and the swashbuckling tone he set there while being quite humorous. That's one of the finest examples of a high adventure book. I loved "Holes" by Louis Sachar. [Jerry Spinelli's] "Milkweed" was very good--very touching and dealing with real issues. I love Mo Willems. I like the Peter Pan books by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.

Did you try to make your own flying machines as a kid?
All the time. Build a better glider was one of our standard pastimes. We lived beside a Norman castle, which now is blocked up, but in those days those kinds of restrictions didn't exist. We were daily up there firing off gliders. We would fire these poor dolls off the top of the castle, so they didn't have a long life expectancy.

"Artemis Fowl" and "Airman" both star characters who use their brains. Are you trying to communicate that message to kids?
It's a natural message for me because that's the kind of person I am. It's not all about how many grenades and guns you have. Often in big blockbuster movies, the message is that if you've got a gun, then you're going to win. I would much prefer to see smart people. [In] all my books, the hero's always someone who tries to stop and think about what's happening and follows up their theories with determination.