Maddy Yip's Guide to Holidays by Sue Cheung

May 11th 2022

Sue Cheung was born in Nottingham to parents who emigrated from Hong Kong in the 1960s. Her first novel for teenagers, Chinglish, is based on her experiences growing up in a takeaway in Coventry. It won several prizes, including the 2019 Guardian’s Best Books list, the ‘Simply the Book’ category at the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards, and the Young Adult category the Diverse Book Awards. She is also the author of the Maddy Lip junior fiction series, and the second book in the series is out now.

When I was asked to write and illustrate a middle-grade book, I jumped on it. It was a chance to write the type of story I wanted to read as a kid, plus it was going to be a light-hearted change from the challenging YA novel Chinglish, I had just finished.

As a young kid, my parents weren’t around much to take care of us as they were busy running a Chinese restaurant. We had no books in the house, so I used my pocket money to buy comics at the local newsagents: The Beano, The Dandy, Whizzer and Chips…I devoured them all. I had a natural ability to draw and spent hours copying pictures out of the comics and making up my own jokes and stories.

I modelled the character Maddy Yip a bit on myself, because I was a bit of a clown and my childhood was very chaotic, so it provided plenty of fodder for her madcap adventures.

I decided to make Maddy Chinese because I didn’t see myself in any of the books I read growing up. In fact, the first character I really related to (even though he was white and a boy), was Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend. At 13 years old, I too felt like a hapless teenage outcast failing miserably to fit in!

As an author of colour, it was only natural that I created a character that reflected that.

I think it’s important for children get the proper representation reflecting society today. Maddy’s mam is English and her dad and grandad are Chinese. I based the family in the North East where I once lived on a council estate. There was never a dull moment with the people I met there, so the Yips live in a similar environment.  

In the first book, Maddy Yip’s Guide to Life, Maddy suddenly realises that everyone she knows has got a talent – except for her! With the help of Dev, her bezzie, she goes through a series of disasters while trying to figure out what she’s good at, including nearly setting fire to the house while breakdancing and nearly choking the school bully to death with her baking. In the end, she discovers her talent is simply being able to make people laugh (which is an excellent skill to have).

I was thrilled to be asked to write a second book, Maddy Yip’s Guide to Holidays. In this story, Maddy goes off on a seaside break with her bezzie, dimwit little brother and bonkers grandad. Their main quest is to get on The Mega Beast, a brand-new rollercoaster at the amusement park - but first they need to get hold of some vouchers. They embark on a manic search and eventually get on the ride. But it turns out that after all that, everyone (except grandad) finds the experience absolutely terrifying and is traumatised for days.

The Maddy Yip series is chock-full of comedy capers and hilarious drawings, with the ultimate aim of making children fall off their chairs laughing (which, according to a reliable source, has actually happened!)

Maddy Yip's Guide to Holidays is out now.