Darcy Burdock

Story

Darcy is ten, and one of life’s ‘noticers’. She is curious, smart and funny, and sees the extraordinary in the everyday and wonder in the world.

We meet her family, which includes Mum and Dad and her two younger siblings Hector and Poppy who Darcy loves to dress up and have dance-offs with, as well as her pet lamb, Lamb-Beth and her best friend Will.

Darcy has many adventures, learning that turning into an Angro-saurus Rex will get you into trouble, and if you're ever unsure what to do, write a story around it, and the truth will come via your imagination.

Why we chose it

Darcy has a wild imagination and a great sense of fun. She’s an engaging and exuberant narrator of her own story.

Where it came from

Laura says she wanted to create a character who inspired confidence in readers by having a fairly normal life, rather than having super abilities. This means that rather than feeling like they have nothing in common with the characters, because nothing interesting happened to them, they can see themselves in the story easily. She wanted to create a girl who wasn’t graceful like all the fairytale princesses. There is a lot of her in Darcy, so much so that the ‘dock’ in Burdock is taken from her own name.

Where it went next

The book was nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2014. Laura Dockrill went on to write four further Darcy Burdock books for the series: Hi So Much, Sorry About Me, Oh Obviously and Angro-saurus Rex.

Associated stories

Laura Dockrill is the author of the Carnegie Medal nominated fantasy YA book Lorali and its sequel Aurabel and of Big Bones, a story for older readers about body image and being happy with who you are. She has also written poetry collections for both children and adults.