Michelle Paver has hit the bestsellers list with her first children's novel, Wolf Brother, about a boy living in a Stone Age forest. She talks to Sarah Foster.

RESEARCH is one thing, but imagine travelling to such a far-flung place as Greenland, bedding down on reindeer skins in the depths of the forest and eating the bloodied flesh of a freshly-caught whale. This may sound extreme, but to Michelle Paver, it's all part of being a writer.

Having landed a £2.8m publishing deal for her first children's book, Wolf Brother, which is currently on the main bestsellers list, the 44-year-old is basking in success, drawing inevitable comparisons with Harry Potter author JK Rowling. Yet she's refreshingly unassuming, making her writing sound more like a big adventure than a rarefied art.

"Greenland was interesting because I was staying in this one little settlement and there were these slabs of whale on the harbour and everyone was queuing up with their shopping bags. I had half a thumb's length to see what it was like. It wasn't very nice," she says, then qualifies this by adding, "The skin was surprisingly tender. It was slightly sweet and not at all fishy."

Also in the name of research, Michelle has sampled raw seal's liver - "That was actually surprisingly OK. It tasted a bit jellyish" - and ridden a horse 300 miles through the forest in Northern Finland.

She says it is only by immersing herself in primitive forest culture that she is able to write about this authentically, using it to inform her view of the Stone Age past, in which Wolf Brother is set. "I use archaeology for things like how people built their shelters, what they ate - those kind of material things. I look at anthropology to see what hunter-gatherers believe then I make up my own belief system," says Michelle.

The novel tells the story of Torak, a 12-year-old boy whose father is killed by a demonic bear. Left alone to fend for himself in the forest, he forms a bond with an orphaned wolf cub and struggles to survive in a prehistoric world of natural magic and spirits.

Unusually, part of the narrative is from the wolf's perspective, which presented Michelle with a tough but, she says, enjoyable challenge. "Wolves can smell and hear much better than we can so it's a completely different way of experiencing the story. I've tried to make it as authentic as possible," she says.

Although she's now an established author, having written historical novels for adults prior to Wolf Brother, Michelle's route has been indirect. She studied biochemistry at Oxford University, going on to become a lawyer before deciding eight years ago to pursue a career in writing. She says it marked the return to a childhood love.

"I was five when I typed my first story on my mother's typewriter. She's still kept it, being a mother," says Michelle.

Her fascination with wolves and the Stone Age also stems from childhood. The daughter of a Belgian mother and a South African father, she moved to Wimbledon, in London, when only a few years old. It was here that she developed some unusual tastes. "I was a tomboy. Other people might have said I was a bit of an odd child," she says with wry amusement.

"I have quite a strong memory of when I was about ten and I was very keen on living in the forest and wolves. I wanted a wolf of my own. My parents were very good - they just let me get on with it. They let me get rid of my bed and sleep on the floor for three years."

Michelle first thought of using her childhood passion as the basis for a book while a student in the early 1980s. But it was not until last year, when she unearthed her 20-year-old notes, that she realised the idea was worth pursuing. "I really liked the central relationship of the boy and the wolf," she says. "The lightbulb above the head moment was, 'Why don't I set it in the Stone Age?'"

Yet despite her enthusiasm, Michelle was far from convinced that the book would appeal to others. "Originally, I only wrote seven chapters because I honestly didn't know if anyone would be interested in buying the book," she says. She needn't have worried - publishers clamoured for it and she secured the £2.8m deal, for a whole series of prehistoric adventure novels, on the basis of those seven chapters alone.

Michelle says that from early on, she envisaged writing an anthology, which she's called Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. "I realised very soon that it wasn't just one book. It only took about a week of sitting down and really thinking about it for the other five books to unroll."

She's still getting used to being the latest darling of children's writing, and admits that she adores meeting people who've enjoyed Wolf Brother. "I have a very broad spectrum of readers - the youngest is seven and the oldest is 83," she says proudly. "It's lovely to see children coming up with a battered copy of Wolf Brother and saying, 'Please can you sign it?'"

On the subject of her being referred to in the same breath as Rowling, Michelle is characteristically modest, saying: "I'm an admirer of her books. It's flattering to be mentioned on the same platform as her."

With the Wolf Brother bandwagon well and truly rolling, and the other five books yet to complete, she certainly has her work cut out. But the way Michelle sees it, life couldn't be better. "It's bizarre how things happen. I would never have expected that this was what I'd be doing. I'm aware that I'm very lucky," she says, adding: "What other job do you have where you are paid to be a wolf cub?"

* WOLF BROTHER by Michelle Paver (Orion, £8.99)

* We have four copies of the Orion Wolf Brother audio tape to give away. Simply tell us the name of the book's central character. Send your entry to Wolf Brother competition, Features, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, to be received by next Tuesday

Published: 19/10/2004