The Many Worlds of Albie Bright

"I chose it because I like its ambition, in trying to use some of the really big ideas in science. The kind of ideas that, when you’re a young person, you hear about, and you can’t help but go, ‘Wow, is the universe really like that?’ And I like that Christopher Edge was able to take a big idea like the many worlds hypothesis and marry it to a very human story of a boy’s longing to see his mother again. And I have to be brutally honest, the story resonated with me particularly because I lost my mother when I was 13. So there was an obvious connection for me. I enjoyed it as an adult, but I would’ve absolutely loved it as a child. Aside from the science, it’s sensitive and beautifully optimistic about the human condition. There’s this scene where Albie is in a parallel universe, where he ends up, if I recall correctly, with the female version of himself who is also a wheelchair user, and they’re at some kind of school dance competition. It’s got all the awkwardness and awfulness of being a young teenager, but then that somehow gives way to a magical moment when Albie and his female alter ego are on the dance floor and essentially pointing two fingers up at the school bully. So it’s just full of emotions I can relate to. I work with young people and I read children’s literature because I think children’s literature is very rewarding to read. Usually it’s hopeful and optimistic in ways that, often, adult literature isn’t."