The One Question Interview! The Education of Bet

Hello guys, I know I haven't been much around. It's not BEA's fault, my hotel doesn't have wi fi (something I so didn't anticipate because they said they DID, only you have to fricking pay your first kid's college found for it and guess what? Not gonna happen!)

Anyways, I had something planned for today! I was invited to be part of this awesome one question interview tour and I said game on!

My interview is with...

Lauren Saratz Logted, author of The Education of Bet.

Summary:

When Will and Bet were four, tragic circumstances brought them to the same house, to be raised by a wealthy gentleman as brother and sister. Now sixteen, they’ve both enjoyed a privileged upbringing thus far. But not all is well in their household. Because she’s a girl, Bet’s world is contained within the walls of their grand home, her education limited to the rudiments of reading, writing, arithmetic, and sewing. Will’s world is much larger. He is allowed—forced, in his case—to go to school. Neither is happy.

So Bet comes up with a plan and persuades Will to give it a try: They’ll switch places. She’ll go to school as Will. Will can live as he chooses. But once Bet gets to school, she soon realizes living as a boy is going to be much more difficult than she imagined.

Now, my questions was...

• I am a fan of the visuals. And for that my question is, if you were to cast your characters with current actors and/or actresses which would you cast and why?

Assuming we're talking about The Education of Bet, that's not the easiest question in the world. If we were talking about the adult novel, Vertigo, now that I could cast no problem: the Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd as Chance Wood and me as Emma Smith - la! And of course for The Sisters 8 series for young readers, my 10-year-old daughter and cocreator of the series, Jackie, would just love to play the parts of all the octuplets; really, if it's animated or Pixar, she'll be happy to do all the voices. But with a YA novel like The Education of Bet? Casting becomes a lot harder.

Naturally while I've been typing this out I've come up with some ideas. I think I'll cast Emma Watson in the title role. After years of playing Harmione in the Harry Potter movies, I'd think she'd welcome the chance to play a Victorian girl who cross-dresses to get what she wants. And since by casting Emma Watson we've clearly shown that money is no object, for the part of Will, the boy Bet is raised with, I think let's take Robert Pattinson. In the book, it's Will that Bet impersonates in order to get an education, and I think Emma and Robert look enough alike for this to be credible. Finally, for the role of James Tyler, Bet's roommate once she gets to school, like Daniel Radcliffe was a fresh face when HP started, so would I Iike to cast James with someone relatively new to audiences. I've therefore taken it upon myself to go through the New Faces Models & Actors website, coming up with this guy, Adam Barnes: http://www.newfaces.com/adambarnes. What do you think? "Oh, Mr. Spielberg! We're ready to start shooting here!"

So what do you think? Good character? Bad characters? I think they are pretty cool =] And the idea of putting Harmoine in the combo doesn't sound bad (she is a very pretty girl).

Other stops in the interview are/were...

May 27: Chelsea: In The Education of Bet, Victorian England is your setting. What made you want to set your book in that time period? http://thepageflipper.blogspot.com/

June 1: Hope http://www.princess2293.blogspot.com/

And there you have it! I have to go cause this i not my house lol So I gotta go back to the hotel from hell, but please if you find this book of any interest to you, well, give it a try!

I will be posting about BEA and such Saturday or Sunday. I will be posting winners to my contest either Monday or Tuesday.

Happy reading,