Reading Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as a teenager, Rodman Philbrick didn't really understand it and even found it a bit boring.
 However, he grasped the power of the story and, in adulthood, that stayed with him. When he decided to write a book about a young boy embarking on a solo fishing trip, it was to Hemingway's famous tale that he turned for inspiration. Rodman makes no apologies for the echoes in his story of Hemingway's classic, although he explains that his book "is about a boy trying to find a way to save his family, not an old man testing his masculinity against the sea". Skiff is the hero of Lobster Boy. His mum has passed away, his dad is an alcoholic and the family fishing boat has been sunk. The boy not only wants to make the boat seaworthy, but plans to defy the odds and land the biggest tuna in the sea on a solo fishing trip - rather as Hemingway's aged Santiago embarked on an epic journey to catch (and then lose) a giant marlin. Rodman, who was in the North-East to talk to schoolchildren, says: "I wasn't going to re-read The Old Man And The Sea because Hemingway is very seductive and I wanted to write my own story. "But I don't think you can read a story as powerful as that without absorbing it. Hemingway took a very simple story and made it into a grand vision of what it is like to find yourself pitted against the elements." In the United States, Rodman is known as an author of thrillers and children's fiction. The American version of Lobster Boy is entitled The Young Man And The Sea, in direct homage to Hemingway. For Rodman, being faithful to Hemingway's straightforward writing style was more important than being true to his plot or characters. He says: "As an adult I developed respect for Hemingway due to the way he restructured language. Before him there was a lot of verbiage, ornate and lapidary language. Hemingway cut back to the heart and meat, using journalistic techniques to write fiction. "As I was writing Lobster Boy, I did think: this is Hemingway and you better be sure you are getting the language right. I had to tell myself: you had better not be using extra words or description; you need to make the language spare. "I am a fairly spare writer anyway, but I thought I would be killed by critics if I was sloppy." What he has produced is a children's book which he believes is a "great boy's adventure. I want kids to read it just as an adventure and if they take something else away from it, I have succeeded as a writer." Growing up on the Atlantic coast of New England, Rodman says distinct recollections of his childhood enable him to write easily for young adults. "I have distinct and powerful recollections of what it was like to be 10 or 12. It is fairly easy to see things through my eyes and through the character's eyes. "I remember what was important to me, how I felt about things, and put these feelings in the context of the story. I was in the head and heart of Skiff and was speaking in his voice. "When my writing sounded authentic for his circumstances and how he would think about the world, the story began to flow for me." He says he started writing stories when he was 12 and things "burned" into his memory. "I jumped right into fiction and then science fiction which I sent to magazines and was rejected. I didn't tell anyone I was writing because I thought it would make me odd or different. My strategy was that I would keep it a big secret and everyone would know when I succeeded." Before making a career as an author, Rodman worked as a longshoreman - the North American equivalent of a docker - and then as a boat builder. His maritime activities are now restricted to fishing, which clears his mind. "I am using what I know about the sea and boat building in Lobster Boy, but I didn't want it to be a lesson. "It would be about a person who happens to be catching a giant fish. It is fun writing for kids as you have the opportunity for your book to be the first that makes a big impression. "Children will write a letter and tell you about that. You don't get that with adult readers. They have always read another book. "I am pretty sure that children would read Lobster Boy before they read The Old Man And The Sea so I get the first crack at it and Hemingway comes next in line." * Lobster Boy by Rodman Philbrick (Usborne, £4.99) | 
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