Sir Lenny Henry talks superheroes, books and the city of Dudley

Sir Lenny Henry has achieved much in more than 40 years in the entertainment industry as a comedian, actor, author and TV presenter, as well as being one of the forces behind Comic Relief.

He has now added a new string to his bow after writing his first children's book, "The Boy With Wings", a story about 12-year-old Tunde, an ordinary kid who suddenly sprouts a pair of wings during a school football match.

The book, which is illustrated by artists Keenon Ferrell, is Sir Lenny's first foray into children's books and he said a lot of it had come from his own experiences reading books as a child.

He said: "I was introduced to reading by my Auntie Pearl who took me to Dudley library when I was about eight or nine and got me signed up for a library card.

"Once I was there, it was like a wonderland for me as they had everything you could possibly want, plus you can sign up for free and read anything you want.

"It introduced me to Oliver Twist and a Christmas Carol and great detective books such as Emil and the detectives and Tintin and I quite liked adventure stories."

Sir Lenny said the moment that triggered his love of superheroes came from getting ready to take a long and smoky journey with his parents and sister to the other side of Birmingham and being given a gift by Auntie Pearl.

He said: "Both my parents smoked and my sister and I just knew it was going to be a long and miserable journey so, to keep us quiet, Auntie Pearl gave me some comics.

"I was reading X-Men, Thor, Batman, the Fantastic Four and Daredevil and that's a key trigger moment for me of realising that I want to write and I want to create superheroes.

"I always wanted to be a superhero, always wanted to be James Bond or Superman or Spiderman and now I get to do a superhero origin story, as they are the best ones.

"You think of Peter Parker getting bitten by a radioactive spider, Batman seeing the bat flying through the window and Superman arriving at the Kents in the backyard."

With this wealth of knowledge and experience of superheroes, Sir Lenny said he thought about what to write about and an idea immediately came to mind.

He said: "It has to be a little black kid as there aren't very many black superheroes in the mainstream and I just thought how great it would be to have one.

"He would be a kid who looks Nigerian, but isn't, has a strange nose, beautiful but weird hair and has the mickey taken out of him by the other kids and is a bit of an outcast.

"He has one thing going for him, which is when he gets upset or anxious, birds in the area do as well, and then during a vital school football match, he goes up for a header and doesn't come down.

"That's the key point where we find out he's got adoptive parents and we don't know who his real parents are, but there's something weird going on and the whole story is finding out who he actually is."

Sir Lenny said the character contains bits of him, saying that all authors put a bit of themselves into characters, but said the book was intended to be fun and great for parents to read to their kids.

He also said he'd read to his daughter Billie in the past, reading Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, but noticed the lack of black protagonists in the stories he read.

He said: "I think there might have been Dean in Harry Potter, who commentated on the Quidditch matches, but I always wanted there to be someone who looked like my daughter at the centre of things, having a great adventure.

"I intend to, if I'm given the opportunity, to write more books that have protagonists of colour at the centre of them.

"What has been great in the last 10 years has been the upsurge in writers of colour, such as Malorie Blackman and Nadia Shireen, so I'm really encouraged by the recent acceptance and inclusive spread of books in the bookshop."

Sir Lenny spoke about his experiences of books growing up, listing some of his favourites, such as The Famous Five, Billy Bunter and Just William and spoke about his experiences of Roald Dahl.

He said: "When I read those books to my daughter, I was an adult and very much enjoyed the reading of those, but I remember going on a family holiday with another couple and our kids and the other father reading the BFG to them.

"We were sat there one night with a glass of wine chatting and then realised we've all heard chapter one of the BFG through listening to him and want to know what was going to happen next.

"The next night, we were sat by the door listening and, by the end of the holiday, we were all sat in the room with snacks and a glass of wine listening to the other dad telling the story, which was very funny."

Sir Lenny was in Birmingham to sign copies of his new book, but his birthplace is always very close to his heart and he was passionate about the prospects of Dudley becoming a city.

He said: "We should have been a city yonks ago and is incredibly tardy, so I think everybody who's going to put money towards making Dudley a city should get off their backsides and do it already!

"We want another Rackhams, we want a Gaudi statue in the middle, we want our own train station with lots of taxis and stuff and we want our own superheroes to fight crime there, for which I nominate Tunde.

"If it could happen so that Dudley becomes a city and West Brom get promoted, how cool would that be?."

"The Boy With Wings" is out on sale now in hardback and digital.

To find out more, go to panmacmillan.com/authors/sir-lenny-henry/the-boy-with-wings/9781529067835