Author Lucy Hawking combines science and story telling

Physicist Stephen Hawking once told a child at a birthday party that he would be turned into spaghetti if he happened to fall into a black hole.
While the theoretical physicist might have been attempting to satisfy the child's curiosity, his daughter Lucy Hawking used the explanation to write "George's Secret Key to the Universe," the first of a series of books that dismantles science for children through stories.
The book narrates the out-of-the-world adventures of a little boy named George who finds his way into space through a computer generated portal into space and experiences the most marvelous phenomena.

"That was the beginning of a story. A story of how a boy managed to get to the edge of a black hole, what would a boy be doing floating around in space and would he ever be able to come back again," says Lucy.
After co-authoring the first book with her father in the year 2007, the author and journalist who went on to write three more books in the George Greenby series, was here recently to participate at an event organised by British Council and Siyahi.
While the books do not contain manufactured concepts that one finds in science fiction, they also don't state scientific theories in a matter-of-the-fact way like textbooks.

Intrigued by unique combination of science and story telling, they leave readers asking for more.

"I looked for a book that I ended up writing. I looked for a book where the kind of science my father and his colleagues worked on but for a young age group. I wanted it for my own son when he was 7 years old. And there was nothing. I saw there was science fiction, there was fantasy, and there were textbooks but there was nothing that would put storytelling together with science," says Lucy.
The George series introduce the readers, particularly children aged between six to ten years of age, to the very complex scientific phenomena that occur in the universe, but through the medium of a story, making it accessible to them.

The story is a treat for curious minds, who through George's eyes can witness some of the most "bizarre, weird and extraordinary things out there.