The crazy idea to write a story about a match, or a lucifer as we say in dutch, came to me years ago.

I don’t know what sparked the idea in my head, maybe it was a drawing I made for someones birthday card with lots of brightly burning candles and a couple of smoldering burnt out matchsticks lying under the cake stand and wondering how many matches does it take to light 25, 55, 60 birthday candles and could one super match do it in one go?

Ever since the idea for a story about a matchstick begun to take shape in my head, I couldn’t see a matchbox or book of matches,

skinny matches, bald matches, matches joined together, dud matches, multi-coloured matches or burnt out matches,

or when putting old matches into a new matchbox, or lighting a match and then throwing it away, without thinking, I must finish writing that story about the family of matches who live in a matchbox on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard!

The original Matches story, about a crooked, bald match, his big strong twin brother, their two cheeky nephews and a shy blushing little matchstick from another matchbox, the last five matches in the Lucky Lucifer matchbox on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard, was too long.

So I decided to split the original story into three books…

The books
The first book, Lucy Star, tells how shy little Lucy, who can’t stop blushing, mysteriously disappears out of the Star Light matchbox, escaping from her two wicked sisters and magically reappears in the Lucky Lucifer matchbox.

The second book, Bright Sparks (Jongen Vonken) tells the story of the happy-go-lucky Lucifer family and the two handsome twin brothers, Luc and Louis, who are joined together,

but after a fight in the matchbox get split up and Luc becomes skinny, crooked and bald, teased and bullied by all the other Lucifers in the Lucky Lucifer matchbox, whilst his brother, Louis, becomes bigger and stronger!

The third and final book, Luc de Lucifer, is my original story of the last five matches in the Lucky Lucifer matchbox. Crooked bald Luc, big strong Louis, their two cheeky red headed nephews and shy blushing little Lucy Star,

who are all nervously waiting to see which bright spark will be chosen to light the eight candles on the birthday cake!

Publishing the books
I wrote the Lucky Lucifer trilogy in dutch, drew loads of sketches for the illustrations and made three dummy books.

Then I tried to get publishers interested!

But no publisher yet wants to burn their fingers on a children’s book about matches!
Especially as the one purpose and highest aspiration of a matchstick is to lie boringly and dead still side by side in their matchboxes just waiting for that ONE special moment when it is lit (for umpteen very necessary and daily purposes as remember a box of matches is standard equipment in a survival kit),

so that they can achieve that one heroic dazzling flame that lasts, if you’re lucky, for just a few long seconds,

– unless you are a dud! –

– and then to be snuffed out and left to smolder in the dirt and in your own ashes!

But hey, that’s the final destiny of all matches!

And I just couldn’t stop imagining all the adventures a matchstick could get up to whilst waiting for that one special final but dazzling moment:

My It’s Another Day weblog, is now the ideal place to finally tell my three Lucky Lucifer matchstick stories, and hopefully a publisher will spot it and want to publish the stories!

Starting this week you can read the first of the Lucky Lucifer books, still in rough sketches, Lucy Star:

Find out how blushing little Lucy Star mysteriously disappears from the Star Light Matchbox and escapes from her two horrid wicked sisters,

the old, worn out Star matches that sputter, break and have no spark anymore,

….and from a whole matchbox full of creepy crawlies!