I’m often asked why I stopped writing for adults and wrote Wolf Brother “for children”. I didn’t. In fact, I never planned to write it at all, and when the story took hold, it was inconvenient. I was under the gun to write the third part of an historical trilogy, and I had no time to spare for anything, let alone a six-book series about Stone Age hunter-gatherers.

Then, one afternoon when I was leafing through some old notes, I came across a manuscript I had written at university, 20-odd years before. It was about a boy and a wolf struggling to survive in a forest. Something about it quickened my pulse. I wanted to rewrite it.

So I started running scenes in my mind’s eye, like a film. The demon-haunted bear rampaging through the forest . . . Torak, the 12-year-old hero, watching his father die . . . A stampede of reindeer seen through the eyes of a wolf . . .

Soon the story had taken over, and I was scribbling in Sainsbury’s. I lived the adventures alongside Torak and Wolf. The research took me to places I had never thought I’d see, and I ended up sleeping on reindeer skins in Lapland.

The style grew out of the story. This is the world of 6,000 years ago, so the language had to be simple and straightforward, but never childish. That was what I concentrated on as I wrote; not age-groups. I couldn’t have written the story if I’d been aiming at the “nine to 12” market, or “young adults”; it would have been too confusing. You can’t be in two places at once, and when I was writing Wolf Brother I was in the forest, not the bookshop.

Somebody once said that one’s real life is often the life that one does not lead. That’s true for me, and I think it’s probably the essential ingredient of a “crossover novel” (that is, one which appeals to both adults and children). The Wind in the Willows, the Discworld novels, Harry Potter. All have that in common: the creation of a world that’s deeply felt — that’s inhabited by the author — and therefore completely real.

When I was a child, I wanted a wolf. And a bow and arrow, and to live like the Stone Age people. I wanted to build my own shelter and go hunting in the forest. I tried it, too. I got rid of my bed and slept on the floor for three years. I skinned a rabbit and cured its hide. I brewed obscure herbal remedies, and fed them to my little sister.

When I became an adult I didn’t grow out of all that, but it went underground. The childhood obsessions became a love of archaeology and the natural world; a fascination with the myths of Inuits, Native Americans and other hunter-gatherers; a lasting interest in wolf behaviour. These stayed with me through 13 not very happy years as a lawyer; and sometimes a chance encounter would drag them to the surface: like the time in the Sierra Nevada when I met a large black bear, and learnt what it is like to be prey.

If I’d sat down and listed all these different elements, then tried to synthesise a novel from them, it would have been just that: synthetic. Instead, the story of the boy and the wolf sat in my filing cabinet, and came to life only when I realised that this was the world I had lost. This was the life I hadn’t led.

I think that’s what readers respond to: when a story helps them to live the life they haven’t led. You can’t engineer that, and you can’t fake it. It doesn’t work every time and you can’t predict when it will. But you know when it does, because of the response from readers.

One little girl longs to speak authentic wolf talk to her collie. A ten-year-old boy wants to do the “hunting and survival stuff” like the Raven Clan. A vegetarian 20-year-old is fascinated by the way Torak honours the spirit of the deer he has just killed. A fortysomething executive cried when Torak’s father died.

Whether you’re 8 or 80, there will always be a life you haven’t led. Some stories can give you that, at least for a few hours. When a teacher reads aloud to her class, or a family listens to an audiotape in the car, they’re doing what people have been doing for thousands of years. It’s no different from the hunter-gatherers of Torak’s time, sitting around the fire, listening to the clan leader. It’s one person telling his companions a story, and making them care about what happens next. That’s the real crossover.

Wolf Brother, by Michelle Paver, appears in paperback on May 27 (Orion, £5.99; offer £5.09 plus 99p p&p, from Books First: 0870 1608080), and is also available on audiobook, read by Ian McKellen.

Spirit Walker, the second in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, will be published in September

For adults and children alike

There has been a tenfold increase in the number of new children’s books launched every month from 2000 to 2005.

WOLF BROTHER COMPETITION

The Times, in association with Waterstone’s, is offering readers the chance to win a unique and valuable hardback edition of Wolf Brother, number one in a series of just 1,000. Numbered and signed by the author, it is also inscribed with a wolf paw print, hand-drawn by Michelle Paver.

As well as an overall winner, there will be three runners-up, one from each age category: under 12, 12-15 and 16-plus. Each runner-up will receive a signed and numbered limited hardback edition, stamped with Michelle’s wolf paw stamp.

How to enter — How do you picture the courageous Torak and his world of snow, mountains and tree spirits? This is your chance to show us, by drawing or painting a picture of Torak and a map of his world, and posting them to Wolf Brother Competition, Waterstone’s Capital Court, Capital Interchange Way, Brentford, Middlesex TW8 0EX. Enclose a note stating your name, age, date of birth, address and phone number. Winners will be chosen by Michelle Paver. If you are under 16, have your parent or guardian sign your entry.

All entries must be the original unassisted work of the entrant. Only one entry per person. Entries cannot be acknowledged or returned and must be received by Friday, June 10. Winners will be informed by July 1, and prizes sent by recorded courier within 28 days of notification. Entries may be published in The Times. Promoter is Waterstone’s. For details of winners, send an SAE to Waterstone’s (address above).

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