Looking for luck

[#1]

We have long been fans of David Hand, O.B.E., professor emeritus of statistics at Imperial College London, brilliant and highly renowned statistician, author, and speaker. This is why we have so often invited him to be a plenary speaker at JMP events:

• Analytically Speaking.  
• Discovery Summit Europe in 2016 and again in 2021.
• Statistically Speaking in 2020 and again in 2021.
  
  

We have happily featured some of his previous books, The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day and Dark Data: Why What You Don’t Know Matters. But this post is about his latest book, Amy’s Luck, in the children’s fantasy/action genre. It’s brilliantly conceived for this younger audience, but having just finished it, I can tell you that it’s also a most enjoyable read for adults (I wish I could have read it to my daughter when she was younger!).

David kindly agreed to a short interview for this blog post.  

What sparked your creative idea for the book? 

David Hand:  I think the book really has three sources. One was the birth of my daughters, when I first had the idea for Amy's Luck. That was quite a few years ago, and there are now two young granddaughters who I hope will appreciate the book. The second was my fascination with probability, chance, uncertainty, and of course luck. Obviously in some sense I have made my career on that. And the third was the pleasure I got from reading the Alice books. Coincidentally, I attended the same Oxford College as their author, Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) - though I was there a few years later than he was!

[video]

Amy’s openness to ideas and her sense of curiosity make her a very likeable character—is her character based on more than her lineage to Alice Liddell of Alice in Wonderland?

David Hand:  I wanted her to be a little mischievous and self-assured, with opinions of her own, but not too much so. She is, after all, on a voyage of discovery, trying to find things out - a quest for the source of luck.

You did an amazing job writing a story that children will enjoy, but also adults.  To what do you attribute that?

David Hand:  That is really very kind. It is certainly what I tried to do, and I hope I have succeeded. Publishers seemed to want me to make the story more like a conventional children's book, without its depth and levels, which is why I decided to self-publish it - to enable me to retain complete control. Coincidentally, I have just learnt that although Macmillan published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll himself paid for it to be published so he could keep more control on the content. I suppose what I have done is the modern variant of that. But to come back to your question: perhaps the real answer lies in my never having grown up!

The book seems like a great way to introduce a younger audience to some abstract concepts earlier in their education.  What age range did you have in mind while writing Amy’s Luck?

David Hand:  This is a rather tough question, but perhaps the best answer is the traditional one: from 8 to 80.

We are so glad David chose to self-publish, and what interesting parallels with Charles Dodgson! We thank him for sharing more about Amy’s Luck. One of my favorite take-aways from the book is that we tend to underestimate how important chance is; the whole idea of chance and luck being everywhere and explaining so much about our universe is sure to spark curiosity and wonder in any reader.  I hope David will write another book in this genre.