Ten-year-old Flora, who lives on a narrowboat with her mum, hates school so much it makes her ill. Her best friend Zoe maintains that school isn't that bad, but Flora wants to be home-schooled like her neighbour, Tan.

Now published by Back to Front ISBN 1 904529 28 3*

When No More School went out of print, Meg wrote:

I wrote ‘No More School’ because I was home-educating my four children at the time and I knew there were no stories to be had about home-educated kids! I also wanted to make the case for home-education in story form. It has so much to offer and I wanted people to be able to read about it in an entertaining way.

I’m also very concerned about kids who are seriously unhappy in school for whatever reason – and I’m concerned about kids who suffer from migraine and eczema, both of which are conditions which, though not life-threatening can make life very difficult, especially for kids, when they can’t choose the conditions they have to live in.

I lived close to a canal and have a good friend who used to live on a narrow boat just as Flora and her mum do. I was also fascinated by a big, old house which stood very close to the canal and wanted to write about that too. It became Buxton House, all the other things got mixed up in my head and ‘No More School’ came out.

If I had to change anything, I’d probably check through and see how many adverbs I’d used after words like ‘said’ and ‘asked’. I used to use them a lot but nowadays I’m not so keen to do that. I read somewhere that, if the speech is powerful enough, you shouldn’t have to write something like ‘he said, furiously.’ Just ‘he said’ should do!

I also think it needs a new cover. Nowadays, the one it’s got looks a bit old-fashioned – but that would be a decision taken by the publisher.

I love ‘No More School’ and I’m very sad that it’s gone out of print. Sometimes I get letters from home-educators who want a copy so I’m looking into the possibility of getting it re-published by a different publishing house. My favourite bit is probably where Tan’s dad, David, comes to find Flora after he has told her he knows that she’s truanting from school. I also like my description of Joss’s space on board her narrow boat – I’d like a space like that! – and I really like this line from early on in the book:

‘They had a lovely time, getting thoroughly damp and muddy on the overgrown footpaths which laced their way through the fields.’

That’s because I’d like to do that too! I love walking in the rain.