I got involved with a charity called Whizz-Kidz in the UK, between 2010 and 2015 to discuss the concept of a disabled superhero.
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My son asked me one day if I could name five disabled superheroes. I pretty much dried up after naming Professor X, from X-Men and it made me wonder how that made my son feel.
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At the time I was completing an MA in creative writing at Teesside University. One of the modules required me to design a writing workshop for a group close to my heart.
Whizz-Kidz supports young people with motability needs as well as encouraging them to gain more confidence. I approached them and asked if I could work with a group of their ambassadors on the workshop and they immediately said yes.
I originally intended to write a short story, but I got so many good ideas from the ambassadors that Napoleon Xylophone demanded I write a full novel about his adventures, and that became a full trilogy of novels.
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There were more disabled superheroes on the internet, but none like the kind of superheroes my son or the young people at Whizz-Kidz wanted to read about. They were looking for a hero that is similar in age to them, who is cool and into the same music, and who was disabled like them, with a medical condition rather than disabled because they have been shot in the spine. They were looking for a hero who didn't have any superpowers like Superman or Spiderman. One who used gadgets and wits to overcome obstacles. A hero they felt they could become, if they used their imagination.
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When we came up with a name for the story's bad guy, I knew we had something special on our hands. Mandrake Ackx filled me with the drive to do more than write a short story, he made me want to tell Napoleon Xylophone's story in full.
Napoleon Xylophone
Wishing Shelf Awards Finalist
Napoleon Xylophone Trilogy
Ghost Doors
Xyz
Cult of the Clan
If you want to track down the original cover version of Napoleon Xylophone's first novel - complete with black pages - you can find it on eBay and used book stores on Amazon. Here's what it looks like:
