Interview - Eoin Colfer and Joanne Harris: Inspiring millions of youngsters to sit down with a book

EOIN Colfer admits he's still a child at heart.

Waiting at airports, the author of the bestselling Artemis Fowl series might be spotted with the Financial Times or a copy of the Wall Street Journal, but they are more than likely hiding a copy of some new comic book he's picked up on his travels. It's always been that way and while it's eight years since Colfer was catapulted to fame, little has changed.

"I don't think anyone writes a book thinking it will sell 20m copies," says the former teacher, who still lives in Wexford, where he grew up. "I'd written five books before Artemis Fowl, which had been fairly popular in Ireland. Things were ticking along, the books paid for the family holiday and I thought that's the way things were going to stay.

"Then everything exploded. If it had happened when I was in my 20s, it might have gone to my head, but I was in my mid-30s, I'd been married to the same girl I'd been going out with since I was 17, and we had two children. Occasionally I buy a new car, but most of it goes in the bank."

Described as Die Hard with fairies, Artemis Fowl captured the imagination of a generation and the series has now been chosen as the Little Read in this month's Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. Schoolchildren from across Harrogate have been reading the first book and will get to meet Eoin when he comes to North Yorkshire next week.

"I'm a big crime fan, strip away the special effects and Artemis Fowl is really a heist novel," says Eoin, whose seventh book in the series Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex is also out next week. "That's nothing new. Tom Sawyer is essentially the search for missing gold and Enid Blyton made a whole career writing about child detectives from the Famous Five to the Secret Seven."

Little Reads have been springing up across the country over recent years and their popularity would seem to contradict the idea that children's literacy is in a dire state. "I was a teacher for 15 years and there was always talk then of how children read so much less than they used to," says Eoin. "I'm not quite sure how that squares with 40 million kids reading Harry Potter and 20 million reading Twilight. Whenever I do an event, there are always lots of children there, I really do think we make too much of what children read." Eoin isn't the kind of author to dress up what he does with any mystique and has little time for those who believe the world of fiction is somehow removed from technological advances.

"Music companies missed a trick when it came to new technology," he says. "There was a complacency that it somehow wouldn't affect them, but I think publishers are being very proactive. I've just bought an iPad and while there are only a few books available at the moment, all of which happen to be by Robert Louis Stevenson, I think it's great idea. To be able to download a dozen books before I go off on a tour will be just brilliant."

The success of Artemis Fowl has given Colfer the freedom to do other things. Last year his follow-up to Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, And Another Thing... was published and while it wasn't given a unanimously warm reception, it did give him a pass into the world of adult fiction. "Some people were appalled by the fact I was even attempting to follow on from Douglas's story," he says. "I weathered the storm and on the plus side, when my first crime novel for adults, Plugged, comes out next year it's never going to be as controversial.

"The Artemis Fowl series has become less brutal. I read a review quite early on from someone I really respect who questioned the necessity of the graphic violence and I took it on board.

"However, in Plugged I've gone for it a little bit. It's not blood and guts, but it doesn't pull any punches. The central character is basically a trouble magnet. He's a tormented artist, a kind of James Joyce with muscles."

Eoin Colfer Live, Harrogate Theatre, Jul 22, 11am. 0845 130 8840. Artemis Fowl: Atlantis Complex is published by Puffin on Jul 20.

Chocolat is the perfect read for chocolate city of York

It's 11 years since Chocolat first hit the bookshops, a decade since it was adapted by Hollywood, but Joanne Harris's novel will always have a special resonance in York.

It was chocolate which made the city world famous so it made perfect sense that Harris's bestselling novel about a woman whose creates a stir when she moves to a small French village to open a chocolaterie with her daughter, was selected for this year's Big City Read Event. "People often think of reading as a solitary pursuit, but in truth it's incredibly social," says Joanne. "The rise of book clubs is proof of that and as an author there is really nothing better than meeting those who read your books. They are really the only barometer of whether a book is good or not."

Residents have now been given free copies of Chocolat and, across the city, reading groups will meet to discuss the novel. A series of spin- off events will look at the importance of chocolate in York's history. For more information on Big City Read visit www.york.gov.uk/libraries