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The Ramblings of A Few Scattered Authors. 15 British children's authors from the SAS (Scattered Authors Society) get together to tell it like it really is. Tips on writing, not-writing and all the assorted hopes, dreams, fears and practicalities of our profession.
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Anyone who knows me (and a fair few who don't as well) will know that my first YA novel Read Me Like A Book comes out this year. I've been shouting about this for a little while now, and have been super-excited about it for lots of reasons, one of them being the fact that I originally wrote this book fifteen years ago, so it's been a long time in the making.
But the same people might not know about the other book that's coming out this year and which in many ways I am JUST as excited about. This book, Emily Windsnap and the Ship of Lost Souls, is the latest in my series about a girl who accidentally found out in a school swimming lesson that when she goes in water, she becomes a mermaid.
Emily and I have had lots of adventures together. She has a tendency to get herself into scary, exciting adventures. [WARNING: Spoilers coming...] Emily has rescued her father from a prison out at sea; she's been nearly squeezed to death by a giant Kraken; she's explored mysterious castles, discovered banished sirens in underwater caves and very nearly been turned to ice by an evil man with too much magic at his disposal.
In August, Emily has her sixth adventure. I can't tell you too much about it yet, as it's still a closely-guarded secret. But what I can tell you is that, in typical Emily style, what starts off as an innocent Geography field trip turns into an adventure involving life and death decisions, a spooky ship and a trip to possibly the most magical place she's ever visited.
For me, one of the most exciting things about this book is that for the first time ever, it's coming out on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time. My UK and US publishers are working together to make this happen, and TODAY, between us, right here, right now, I am very excited to be using the wonderful ABBA blog (thanks ABBA!) to reveal the cover!
So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, children and mer-kids, I give you, Emily Windsnap and the Ship of Lost Souls - the cover. I think it might be my favourite Emily Windsnap cover ever (by the wonderful artist Sarah Gibb). Hope you think it's as beautiful as I do! :) :) :)
PS If you need to catch up with the rest of the series before reading the new one (or you know someone who does) check out the giveaway on
my Facebook page. :)
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When I first thought about having a go at writing a novel, I spent quite a lot of time reading lists of writing tips on blogs (like this one) and in writing books. If you’ve read even a handful of those kinds of lists you’ll probably have noticed that the one tip that comes up time and time again is:
Never give up.
Persistence, apparently, is everything.
Even before I’d started I knew this bit might be tricky for me because, basically, I’ve always been a massive quitter.
I’ve spent hundreds of pounds on musical instruments I can only play a few notes on. I have a bookshelf full of unread books on computer programming. I once bought a full Taekwondo suit only to walk out halfway through the first class on account of the fact I don’t really like rough games. And true to form, since I decided to start writing, I’ve given up lots of times, on lots of things.
But something I’ve realised recently is that actually, all this quitting has helped me. Because giving up on stuff has freed me up to start other things, and being a massive starteris actually kind of useful.
I decided I wanted to write a publishable novel at the beginning of 2013 and I signed my deal in the middle of 2014, so it took me 18 months which isn’t too bad when you hear what some people have to go through. But in that time I wrote five different books (
which you can read about here if you’re interested). I think if I hadn’t been such a quitter – and such a starter – it would’ve taken me much longer.
Giving up gets a bad press, and mostly with good reason – it represents abandoning your dreams, failing to reach your potential, a disappointing end to a difficult journey – so I do think there is undoubtedly a negative kind of quitting. But I also think there’s a good kind of giving up. Giving up that gives you back the time and energy to start something else. Something better.
So, this is when I think it’s OK to give up on a project:
1) When you have something on submission.
Whether you’re waiting for a reply from agents or publishers, give up on that book for a while. Assume it’s never going to happen. Start a new project, something you’re really excited about. That way, if the rejections do start to roll in, you’ll be able to think ‘What, THAT old thing? I never liked that one anyway.’ (If you get positive responses you’ll have no trouble rekindling excitement for the project. Good feedback just has that effect.)
After all, even if that book does take off, you’ll need to do another one at some point so you might as well be getting on with it now.
2) When you have a better idea.
Some people warn against starting something new when you’re in the middle of another story, but I think if a really good ideas hits you, it’s a makes sense run with it and see how far you get. It’s so much easier to be productive when you’re really excited about a project that it seems a shame to put it on hold and risk that spark going out. You can always come back to the first idea later.
3) When you’re sick of it.
If you don’t even like it yourself any more then probably no one else is going to either. You can hope that someone’s going to spot something that you can’t even see yourself but it’s probably not going to happen. You might have changed a lot since you first started work on it. You’re probably capable of something better now. Take anything you do like – any bits of plot or setting or character – recycle it, repurpose it, and write something new.
4) When you’ve exhausted all avenues.
We’ve all heard about how many times Harry Potter was rejected and how long it took Stephen King to find a publisher, but I suspect that for every story like that, there are a thousand others about people who kept plugging away at the same one novel for years and years and still never got anywhere.
It’s hard to look at something objectively when you’ve put so much of your time and energy into it, and people will think they’re being kind by telling you to stick with it, but sometimes it’s less painful and more productive to just move on. Still work on getting a novel published, just maybe not that one.
Website:
www.jessvallance.comTwitter:
@jessvallance1
This isn't a new topic for me but there is something special about this post: I am cross-posting with fabulous school librarian (former School Librarian of the Year, no less!) Duncan Wright, both of us writing from our own point of view but aimed at informing the other. So, I'm writing about what authors (writers or illustrators) would usually like from event organisers and Duncan has written here about what organisers need from authors. Both are in the spirit of positivity and mutual respect. We think it's good when each "side" can see it from the other's pov - though, of course, in almost every way we are both on the same side!
I have a document (on my events page) to send to organisers before my events but that is just my needs. What follows below aims to apply to all or most authors and to act as a general guide.
TIPS FOR AUTHOR EVENT ORGANISERS
Your visiting author wants the event to be brilliant and whatever you hoped when you booked that author. We aim to give our best performance every time. That's our job and our desire but there are things you can do that will make that easier - or harder...
All authors are different. Some find events exhausting, because of the energy involved in talking to new audiences all the time; others find them relatively easy. We have different needs, but the following are pretty common.
CONTACTING YOUR AUTHOR
- Choose one you really want, and know why. Explain why when you send the invitation. Read any event details on their website so you know they're right for you.
- If you absolutely have to ask for a reduced fee, please do this with a) respect and tact and only if you genuinely have to and b) fully understanding what you're asking: a working person to give up part/all their wages for the day (or more). We have to account for preparation, discussion, admin, travelling, and an event fee is not an hourly fee. Most of us earn very little and then only when someone pays us. There are ways of asking for freebies but if you don't get that quite right it's incredibly undermining. We bruise very easily! (To understand more, see here.)
- Be as clear as you can about what you want, though we realise that may not be possible. Ideally, know your budget, so discussions can start from there.
DURING INITIAL DISCUSSIONS- Agree exactly what you're paying for. Agree expenses, too. If an overnight stay is required, most (but not all) authors value the privacy of a hotel or B&B rather than staying with a host. I know many authors who are too embarrassed to say no to accommodation with a lovely librarian in case they seem rude: it's just that privacy is really important to many and affects sleep and energy.
- Agree time-table details. And inform about changes well in advance, as it affects preparation.
- Try not to send eleventy million emails. Although getting all the info is crucial (on both sides), try to do it smoothly, so that neither of you spend tooo much time on it and it's easy to find later.
- Discuss whether and how bookselling can be part of the event.
- Be really clear about what you need from the day - we want to provide what you want but we're not psychic.
LEADING UP TO THE EVENT- Ensure pupils know who the author is and what he or she has written. It’s good if they prepare questions – it helps make the event their own. Most authors have websites: get pupils to use them!
- Make sure relevant staff know about the visiting author, too. That increases value as staff can follow up.
- Check what tech and other equipment is needed. And make sure it works!
- If you've agreed bookselling, do ensure that pupils are told (often!) that they need money. Pupils often discover they want to buy a book but very often don’t bring money. The letter that you carefully wrote may not reach them or they may have forgotten. If bookselling goes wrong, it’s upsetting and embarrassing – and costly when the author paid for the books. (By the way, we don't earn much per book.) Sometimes, you’ll do everything right and the message still won’t get through, of course, so don't worry that we're going to think badly of you. We just need to know you tried your best.
- Make sure no one will be filming or recording. Check with the author how they feel about photos. Personally, I’m happy to have photos taken (well, not happy exactly…) after/between events but not during.
- Discuss refreshment needs and make sure there is water and whatever else you feel is going to help the author perform well.
- Tell the author as soon as possible if a pupil might be upset at certain themes because of a recent personal tragedy or difficult situation. (I was once told, while walking towards the hall for a talk about Fleshmarket, that I couldn't talk about the first chapter because a pupil had recently been bereaved. If you know about Fleshmarket, you'll understand my problem...)
ON THE DAY- Plan your introduction to the audience. A lively introduction makes a huge difference to everyone's mood and excitement – and flattery helps, bringing energy to both the pupils and author! (NB Illustrators are authors, too - never undermine an illustrator's part in an illustrated book by saying anything to suggest that one is more important than the other.)
- Provide water and a table to put things on. (And anything else you've agreed.)
- I recommend you give the author a few minutes' headspace before each talk. Don't hassle with chat about the weather at this stage: we may not look nervous but will probably welcome the need mentally to go over what we're about to say. On the other hand, if the author seems very chatty, go with that! I sometimes am and sometimes am not - please don't take it personally.
- Bookselling (if you have agreed this): supply a table and chair for the author to sign at. Ensure that pupils don’t crowd round (I’ve been knocked off my chair like that!) You need someone to handle the actual selling while the author signs. Decide what, if anything, can be done to accommodate those who haven't brought money but want a book.
- Remind or tell the audience what you've agreed about photographs and that they may not film or record (unless the author has agreed otherwise.) Make sure phones are off and out of sight.
- Refreshment and breaks: make sure whatever you've agreed with the author is in place.
A note about refreshments and breaks
Here's where I start to sound a bit nutty, but I've learnt that without the refreshments and breaks that I need, my brain starts to seize up. Most especially, I need breaks: little pockets of peace between talks. (For clarity, "peace" means not having to chat...) Lots of authors feel the same about the need for peace and may not tell you but I’ve decided it’s so crucial to my wellbeing and performance that I need to make a big point of it! I do like chatting and I am friendly but it's tiring.☺
So, here's what I tell event organisers. (As I say, not everyone's the same. But you'll find many are.)
"My talks are energy-intense and afterwards my blood sugar will dive. I have very basic requirements but I do need time to myself at some point. I am delighted to be sent out to get a sandwich at lunch, or for you to give me a plate of food in the staff-room and time to gather my thoughts for the next event. Please do not feel that you need to entertain me. I’m an introvert (which does NOT mean I’m shy; far from it – just that conversation and social interaction tax my brain more) and I need recovery time between events. Of course, it’s lovely when other members of staff and management want to meet me and chat – and I can happily chat for Britain – but please make sure I get chill-out time as well, especially immediately before an event, otherwise the talk won’t be as good. In short, my only needs are: a sandwich (eg), something to drink and a bit of time on my own. And the time on my own is the more important bit because I'll have brought my emergency fruit and nut supply anyway. I told you: nutty!
"I have no food allergies or special requirements but was once given a raw onion sandwich at a school event and now feel the bizarre need to request NO raw onion. Thank you!"
PLEASE DON’T (MOST AUTHORS WILL AGREE):- Suddenly ask the author to “pop into this class and talk to them” if we haven’t agreed this in advance.
- Feel that you have to entertain us, unless we've specifically asked for a song and dance routine.
- Introduce us with the phrase, "X needs no introduction."
- Leave us alone with pupils – this is a condition of our Public Liability insurance and not because we are scared!
- Send (or escort) us along convoluted corridors (or even, in my case, one straight corridor) to the toilets and expect us to find our way back. Authors have disappeared like that.
- Allow teachers to sit and mark books - please ask them to be involved in the talk; I know they are very busy but everyone will gain much more if they are properly engaged and it's very off-putting when someone is sitting there not listening. (Actually, it doesn't bother me hugely but it bothers some people a LOT. And it's rude.)
- Tell us (as you're walking us towards the first talk, especially) how utterly GREAT so-and-so was and how he as the best speaker evah.
- Worry about anything. If you’ve done all the above, it’s going to be a great day.
FINALLY
Remember that we want exactly what you want: a great event that people will talk about for all the right reasons. Almost none of us are prima donnas (or whatever the male equivalent of that is) and anything that sounds like a pompous "demand" is really really really only so that we can give you our best event. But most of us are fragile: this whole authory thing is very exposing and our career, reputation and emotional wellbeing are on the line. And so, if you want to earn our undying gratitude, just do one more thing, if you possibly can: say "Well done - that was great." And gosh, I hope it was, because I worked hard to make it so.
'A book ought to be an ice pick, to break up the frozen sea within us.' (Franz Kafka)
I first came across this quote from Kafka some years ago, when I was putting together a collection of books which I hoped would appeal to some of the young offenders I was working with, and it's always resonated: a book - the right book - can have tremendous power, can't it?
For some reason I thought of it today - perhaps it was because I just heard Ruby Wax on the radio, talking about depression, and a series of mental cogs creaked rustily into motion and came up with Kafka. (I remember doing German at A-Level. We really weren't very good, and when we were presented with Kafka's short stories, with ants crawling out of a hole in the palm of someone's hand, men turning into beetles etc, there was a great deal of head-scratching - was it us, or was it him?)
And then I got to thinking, what would be my 'ice pick' book? A book that changed the way I felt, or perhaps was just a comfort at a difficult time? I always find it difficult to choose, but rather oddly, this is the one that keeps popping up in my mind's eye.
And this is the next one.
What would be your ice pick book? It would be great to have some suggestions in the comments!
A while back I tackled the ticklish problem of how we present ourselves at readings, festivals, author visits - any time we are obliged to get out of our pjs and face the public. That post focused on women writers and their clothes dilemmas. With men writers, there are fewer versions of shirt/trousers, sweater/trousers, jacket/trousers to get wrong. But there is one thing - one vital decision - that I would like to address today - and that is ...
Nobody said being a writer was going to be easy - here's wishing you luck in your decision.
P.S. Apropos of nothing writerly, I'm a big fan of this video too - Yo Mama.
Joan Lennon's website.Joan Lennon's blog.
Shh! I shouldn't be writing this on the Wednesday afternoon before it's due. I'm locked away in Devon, and I should be head down, working on my novel. But as usual, life got in the way, and I didn't manage to post something wise and insightful a week in advance.
The thing is, life has got in the way quite a lot lately. I won't go into details, but there it is. I'm behind where I should be, running to keep up and not miss deadlines and not disappoint people (including myself). I knew it was going to happen, and that's why, for Christmas (and birthday and probably next Christmas as well), I asked, for once, for something I really really wanted.
Time to write with no distractions.
It's a precious thing, is time, especially writing time. I can't actually remember when I had a stretch of it unbroken by that life-getting-in-the-way thing I mentioned earlier. But now I do, and I'm appreciating every moment of its extreme preciousness. So here I am, in the tiny village of Sheepwash in Devon, at the amazing
Retreats for You, being cossetted (including nightly hot water bottles and glasses of wine brought to my room), cared for, fed delicious meals (which I'm not allowed to clear up after), and above all LEFT ALONE to do what I really want to. Write.
Yesterday I wrote over 3000 words. I haven't done that in a long time. Today I'm already up to 1500 (and that's not including this post). I'll be at 3000 again by the end of the day or bust, and I'm here for nine more whole days, leaving the family and dogs behind to take care of themselves.
I can't even begin to tell you how marvellous it is to say that. Sometimes, as writers, we just crave quiet and time and space to think, and it's not always easy to come by. As a mother and a carer and a person who wears far too many hats, I'm pretty hard on myself. Writing is supposed to be my full-time job - and yet, far too often, I find myself squeezing it in around everything else. The gift of what I really need - time to do the work I love - may not be everyone's idea of the perfect present, but it is mine, and I am grateful to my family for understanding that and for making it possible.
Long live
Retreats for You (trust me, if you're a writer you NEED to come here!), and I know you'll forgive me if I get back to my novel now. I'll see you all again on the other side!
"rippingly funny…offers food for thought on everything from absentee parenting to the mistreatment of animals (even immortal ones)."
Publishers Weekly US starred review
Coming in May 2015 from Orchard, Cleo (UKYA historical fantasy about the teenage Cleopatra VII)
In January 2009 I wrote a blog on ABBA about the Room in my Head. It went something like this -
The Room In My Head
As the new year begins I look inside my head to find that room where inspiration might be hiding….
In the middle of the room there is space, empty of life or furniture. Walls, accustomed to colour and pattern, stand bereft waiting for design - perhaps imprints of flowers, pattern or activity.
Underfoot boards made of wood and nails move to mark my passage and where the light floods though glass no curtains block its passage.
And yet the room is full of hope and joy because the sun is shining, casting summer against the emptiness.
Sounds fill the space with anticipation - strains of mystery that fill my ears and delight my senses, holding me captive - wondering - what I will discover?
This year, many years and stories later, I find my year starting with the Room in My Head well populated by the book I am currently writing. There is still space in the room although it is well furnished with characters and places, ideas, textures and much activity.
Underfoot ideas are scattered on the boards like so many sparkling jewels - tempting and clamouring for attention.
Terrified they might be discarded, their brilliance allowed to fade, dissipate and be condemned to become mere pebbles abandoned on the path to the finale.
Light flooding through the glass varies with each passing day, dependent on the story's progress, from dreary grey rain-clouds...
to breezy sunshine over water.At the moment the Room in my Head is packed with a tapestry of thoughts, emotions, wrong turns and epiphanies.
It changes daily and fills to bursting with the noise of those who inhabit the story, each with their own goals and intentions, duplicitous or discernible,
but always fascinating.
What fills the Room in your Head?
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Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and the writing handbook Writing For Children.Linda's latest YA novel is Don't Judge Me she is Patron of Reading to Liberton High School, Edinburgh.
Her best selling series Hamish McHaggis is illustrated by Sally J. Collins who also illustrated Linda's retelling of Greyfriars Bobby
website: www.lindastrachan.com
blog: Bookwords
Last week I wrote about how camping out - in both reality and fiction - inspired my new book Wild Thing Goes Camping. Equally important, I realised, was the idea of dens and secret hiding places.
There’s something really powerful for a child about a den or a secret place. There’s all the fun of finding or building one. There’s also the thrill of having a place that nobody know about: a place totally under your control, where nobody messes with your stuff, which is totally private from the grown-ups.
I’d already used the idea once before in Sam and the Griswalds – where a tree-house in Sam’s garden provides an important refuge and meeting-place.
In Wild Thing Goes Camping, five-year-old Wild Thing disappears into the back garden with some of the clean laundry. When big sister Kate, Gran and Dad go looking for her, they are rather taken aback when a head pops out of the ground at their feet.
"No need to shout," she said.
It was a bit of a shock seeing my sister come out of nowhere like that. "What are you doing down there?" I demanded. "And... where is the rest of you?"
"In my new den, of course," said Wild Thing. And she disappeared again, under the sheet.
Dad gave a roar of annoyance. Then he knelt down and grabbed a corner of the sheet - and pulled.
Wild Thing gave a howl. "Stop!" she bellowed. "That's my roof!"
It turns out Wild Thing has made a potato trench in the back garden into a den for herself and her worms. She makes a sheet into the roof and purloins Gran’s new handbag as a “worm house”.
Of course, Dad forbids her from building more den. But like children before and since, Wild Thing is not about to give up her pursuit of a place of her own!
Here are some of my own favourite books with secret dens. They cover the entire age range: a secret space, after all, may be just as important to a teenager as it is to a small child making a den behind the sofa.
I’ve had to search hard, though, to think of recent examples. Is this because there are fewer forgotten and hidden places in today's intensely developed world? Or because modern children have less freedom to explore outdoors? Or perhaps because today’s children take refuge online – not in dens?
1
) Sally’s Secret-
by Shirley Hughes Classic picture book writer-illustator Shirley Hughes produced this wonderful story about a small girl making herself a house at the bottom of the garden. The joy is in the details – the doll’s tea set, the leaf plates, the tiny cakes. At the end she decides to share it, and invites the next door child to tea.
2)
Tilly’s House –
by Faith Jacques A servant doll that runs away from a dolls’ house and creates her own home in a wooden crate in an abandoned green-house. Although about a doll, it taps into a child’s own desire to make a little place of their very own. The special pleasure of this story, again, lies in the very detailed illustrations, and in seeing how discarded and unwanted every day human objects (sponges, bottle tops, wrapping paper, an old glasses case) can be transformed into the furnishings for a doll.
3)
The Hollow Tree House -
by Enid Blyton Enid Blyton may not have been a great stylist. But her enormous popularity was not for nothing, and one of her strengths was her ability to hook-in to a child’s fantasies. It’s not surprising, then, that many of her books feature secret hide-outs.
The Hollow Tree House is about two children who, with the help of a friend, run away from their abusive relatives and make their home in a huge, hollow tree in the woods.
4)
The Magician’s Nephew -
by C.S.Lewis Sometimes a secret place may be the way into another world. Polly has made a "smuggler's cave" in the attic of her terraced house. It is, of course, when she shows the attic to her friend Diggory that they travel too far along the rafters, stumble into Uncle Andrew’s study, and end up as part of an experiment which sends them out of this world, and eventually into Narnia…
5)
The Dare Game -
by Jacqueline Wilson Jacqueline Wilson is a contemporary author who seems to have a direct line to a child's fantasies. In this book, her most famous character, Tracy Beaker, bunks off from school and discovers an empty house. It becomes a place where she can escape from her troubles, but also form new friendships.
6)
The Secret Hen House Theatre - by Helen Peters This is a recent book, whose old-fashioned setting on a Sussex farm has not stopped it making a big splash. Helen lives with her three siblings and widowed dad, whose long working day leaves little time for his children. Then one day she stumbles upon a dillapidated old hen house. For Helen, it represents not just the chance of creating her own space, but a way of fulfilling her dreams of being an actress...
7)
Jenning’s Little Hut-
by Anthony Buckeridge Jennings and his boarding-school friends build their own shelters down by the pond. These vary from Bromwich Major’s subterranean “elephant trap” with resident goldfish to Jennings and Darbishire’s own
Ye Old Worlde Hutte with its periscope, duckboards, and front door mat made of bottle tops!
8)
Peter’s Room-
by Antonia Forest In this neglected classic, Peter Marlow turns the loft above the coal shed into a hide-out, complete with stuffed hawk and antique pistols. This adult-free space then becomes the venue for a teenage fantasy game that gets dangerously out-of-hand.
9)
The Hunger Games -
by Suzanne Collins Katniss and Gale have a secret shelter where they meet while poaching in the woods. Later, during the Games themselves, Katniss and Peetah take refuge in a cave by the river. For victims of an oppressive, authoritarian regime, the possibility of a space of their own is every bit as important as it is to younger children trying to dodge their parents.
Any suggestions for number 10? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emma's series for 8+
Wild Thing about the naughtiest little sister ever (and her bottom-biting ways) is published by Scholastic.
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman
Wolfie is published by Strident. It is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
"A real cracker of a book"
Armadillo "Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended"
Books for KeepsEmma's
WebsiteEmma’s
Facebook FanpageEmma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite
This Thursday the great wheel of the Chinese zodiac will spin to welcome in the Year of the (Wooden) Ram; a year of calm, creativity and goodness (according to my online resources!) The five elements of the Chinese calendar – Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth – intersect with a zodiac animal only once every sixty years. In an interesting coincidence, during the last days of the Year of the Wooden Ram in 1896 (Chinese New Year starts mid-February to our calendars), my grandmother Mimi was born in China, to English missionary parents in a small white church on the marshy banks of the Yangtze River.
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| Mimi, centre, with her sisters "Sixth Precious" and "Seventh Precious" |
When I was young, Mimi – we only ever called her Mimi rather than her birth name Alice Harriet - seemed incredibly old and exotic. She always dressed in sky-blue or linden green silk, and her bright eyes radiated a Zen-like calm that impressed me even as a child. She spoke and sang fluent Mandarin, her small bungalow by the sea was crammed full of Chinese paintings and manuscripts; her missionary father James had engaged himself in translating Chinese texts such as the Monkey King and the sayings of Confucius.
As a four-year-old child she had escaped the
Boxer Rebellion sweeping northern China in 1900 by sailing down the Yangtze on a raft with her family; they had avoided massacre by moving constantly between villages while many of their missionary colleagues were killed. She had lived in Peking during the last years of the failing Qing dynasty; later when travelling to America during the war, her convoy was torpedoed by German submarines and her boat was the only one that survived. She had lived and worked all over the world from Malaya to Carthage, Tokyo to Trinidad, New York to St Andrews; she had published
books for children and magazines and been interviewed for
radio and
books.
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There was also a rumour in my family that despite being born to English parents she was actually herself partly Chinese, the product of a liaison between a half-Chinese servant and my great-grandmother; or perhaps my grandfather and a half-Chinese servant, or maybe an abandoned mixed-race child adopted by the missionaries. This wasn’t as hard to verify as it sounds; despite the fact that she always wore a great deal of make-up to disguise a birth mark and a scar on her lip, she was so old by the time I knew her that her very gender seemed indeterminate, let alone her race. The mystery was further deepened by vague references amongst diaries and letters of the time – of a “Chinese daughter” of James Ware, her father. But nobody living really seemed to have any idea. Had Mimi really been born mixed race, in an environment where it had to be kept strictly secret?
As an adult, I decided to research her life for a novel about a mixed-race girl born to a family of missionaries living in China during the turbulent last years of the nineteenth century. Whether or not Mimi was truly mixed race, I decided that the idea was too good to pass up. But first I had to discover the truth. I read Mimi’s writings and interviews, scrolled through countless microfiches of missionary papers, scanned the Yale Divinity archive, checked through the (existing) website of the missionary society, trawled through boxes of diaries, old China Dailies, and East Asia magazines. The reality as you've probably guessed, was different to the myth, but no less interesting. In Mimi’s own words:
“My father was walking one night towards a ferry where he hoped to catch a house-boat. He had only an oil lantern, but when he heard a child crying he went to find it lying in a ditch. When he picked it up its feet dropped off. He put a blanket around the child although he feared that it would die. It survived, however, and was adopted into our family. Her feet had been bound, and because of the unusually cold weather they had frozen and come off. She had therefore been taken some distance from the village and thrown into a ditch. As a child she had cried so much from the pain [of her bound feet] that her parents said she had a devil and wished to be rid of her. Esther, we named her, and she became headmistress of the Ware Memorial School in Shanghai, and got about far better on her artificial legs than her sisters did on their bound feet.”
So there you have it – the Chinese daughter of James Ware was a real and actual person, though not actually my grandmother – and none of my family living had ever heard of her! After a bit more fishing around I found a picture of Esther (God bless Ancestry!) and a whole string of Australian second cousins related to my great-great-aunt Rosa who eagerly supplied me with more information.
 |
| Esther Lo Ware, circa 1929, Shanghai |
What became of Esther through the tumultuous years of the Revolution is not clear; she remained headmistress of the Ware Memorial School until her adoptive sisters were forced to leave China, and her last letter in 1949 is dark: “I have established a school in memory of Father to carry on his work to help the Chinese people. I have been elected as the head of the district that I live in. But all around me there is war and famine everywhere which shows that Jesus is coming soon ...”
Reading Mimi’s early memoirs painted a stunningly vivid picture of life at the time. She wrote of floods along the Yangtze where the “farmers who had lost everything made nests of mud and dried grass on higher ground and lived in them like rats.” She described being “terrified by the troops of children with matted hair and filthy rags who were hustled along by rascals who had found or stolen them. At best they would be sold as household slaves.” And in one particularly affecting piece:
“At the entrance of an alley near our school ragged country-folk used to gather to beg food from the throngs in the adjoining market. There we children saw one day a man in an attitude of exhaustion. His head was on his knees, and around his neck was a placard offering for sale his three children, who, poor little things, totally unaware of their fate, were playing with stones in the dust at his feet.”
So currently I’m writing The Monkey Queen, a heavily fictionalised story of travelling missionaries during the Boxer Rebellion and based on the family of five children; the mission station and father James; their servants Li Peng and Chi Gang; Esther is a real character, and the circumstances of her foot-binding and rescue remain. Mimi was the fifth child of the family, and was referred to as “Wu-Pao,” or “Fifth Precious,” and her other siblings are the three rescued children of the Shanghai market and Esther. In the novel Mimi is truly mixed race, and the how and why remain a mystery until the final pages ...
... Final pages that I have still to write!
Writing about one’s own family and the borders between reality and fantasy is fascinating, but truly hard. At what point will I have to abandon the truth for literary security? The story does not seek to glamorise or make heroes of the missionaries; I am not a Christian, nor do I approve of imposition of faith on people, though the humanitarian good done by many missionaries in times of famine, war or to improve the lot of women is hard to dispute. There are plenty of books and articles written dissecting the harm done by the
Opium Wars, the encroachment of foreign powers, railways and missionaries on Chinese soil; of the famines, wars, loss of traditional livelihoods and disaffections that fuelled the Boxer Rebellion. The magic rituals that the Boxers followed were no less devout than the faith of the missionary. All these themes weave themselves through the novel which is told from multiple viewpoints; the Christian missionary, the Chinese servant, the disaffected Boxer recruit, the shameful mixed-race child ...
Now the mystery of my "Chinese grandmother" is solved, it's time to create the story for myself.
I only wish she was alive to read it.
This is one of the most iconic images from the Holocaust - a seven year old boy with his hands up for the German camera man, surrendering to armed German soldiers. The terrified look on his face speaks volumes. It is 1943 and this image is from the Warsaw Ghetto. It is an image which is often used to show how the Nazis waged war on children; on those least able to defend or protect themselves.
But like so many pictures from history, even as recent as 72 years ago, there is a sense that all the people in this picture have vanished and so our connection to such horror weakens and becomes distant and easy to disconnect from.
However, on Holocaust Memorial Day, 2015, I had the privilege of meeting Arieh Simonsohn, now in his 80s - Arieh was the boy with his hands in the air. Suddenly history came alive in front of me.
Arieh had been invited to speak at an event held at Southampton University for HMD 2015, the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. On that day 300 survivors of the camp gathered in Birkenau. Among them was my father's cousin, Renee Salt, who was also a child in the Holocaust and survived the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, slave labour and Belsen, only to find herself all alone in the world after liberation.
The HMD event in Southampton was one of 70 sites chosen around the UK for the lighting of one of Anish Kapoor's candles. Kapoor, the eminent sculptor, was commissioned to create a special installation for this important anniversary. He made 70 candles and Arieh lit the candle at Southampton.
I had a chance to speak to Arieh beforehand and he told me about the photo. He is seven years old and over his shoulder is a bag which his mother made for him. He has almost no memory of this time as though the trauma has been wiped from his mind. But he remembers the clothes and the bag. He kept everything he could scavenge in that bag, food scraps, etc until it was stolen from him. He thinks the woman behind him just in front of a German soldier is his mother, but he is not sure.
Arieh told me that for a long time he would not admit to being the boy because he was ashamed that he was surrendering. Well - he was only seven! Such was his strength and determination to survive, which he did when he was sent into hiding by his parents and faced so many terrible things, that the very thought of surrendering to the enemy was unthinkable. True grit even to this day.
Arieh also said that the soldier behind him, facing the camera and with his gun pointing straight at the child was a man called Bleuther who had personally massacred over 3000 people in the ghetto. He was a mass murderer. He wasn't caught until 1968 and then he was tried and sentenced to death.
"I was very fortunate, I was lucky," Arieh said to me with a smile playing on his face. "You were so strong, an inspiration to us all," was all I could say back as I patted his arm. The whole of Arieh's family disappeared in the Holocaust. "Until recently I could not accept that they were dead," said Arieh. "But probably they died on a transport to Treblinka." Over 300,000 people were transported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka death camp and murdered. Thousands died within the Warsaw Ghetto from starvation, disease, torture and murder. Arieh is one of the few survivors.
Arieh is among the dwindling number of survivors who is still able to visit schools and communities to give their eye witness stories. Holocaust Memorial Day gives everyone an opportunity to reflect on this particular genocide and those which so sadly have followed since 1945 : Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur and also that of the Armenian genocide which preceded the Holocaust.
My friend Helen Bonny wrote a song, Keep the Memory Alive, which was performed by Jack Cook, a professional singer and song writer and Helen's son.
Arieh was forced to look after himself from the age of seven until the end of the war, two years later, without his parents.He learnt many skills including running with a gang, removing German landmines to help the Allied advance and stealing food. He triumphed over all the odds and came to the UK where he built a new life for himself. He could not speak highly enough of his adopted country.But the real accolade lies with Arieh himself. He never gave up and he never gave in.
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By:
Karen,
on 2/13/2015
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If, like me, you enjoyed reading mystery stories such as Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven and the Nancy Drew series you'll be pleased to hear that, according to a newspaper article I've just read, the trend apparently is going back towards traditional storytelling and the sort of books we liked to read as children are back in vogue.
This does seem to be the case, several of the books nominated for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize are mystery-based stories such as
Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens (5-12 age group) and
Smart by Kim Slater in the Teen group. Of course, the theme's been given a fresh angle and modern mystery stories deal with topical issues.
Smart for example investigates the death of a homeless man and although
Murder Most Unladylike is set in a traditional boarding school and investigates the murder of a teacher it explores topics such as racism and same-sex relationships. All very modern.
Nostalgia has been popular for some time now. Items that my children played with such as Furbies, Pokemon cards and Tamagotchis are fetching incredible prices. Many toys such as Furbies, and even traditional toys from my childhood, have made a come back - modernised, of course.
I think the reason for this is because in our fast-paced, twenty four hour, high pressure society many people long for the simplicity of the past when children played in the streets with hooplas, footballs and skipping ropes or wandered the fields looking for adventures. Nowadays most parents don't think it's safe to let their children out of their sight so most children are cooped up indoors playing on Ipads and computers. Small wonder that many people feel quite nostalgic about the past.
Mystery stories have always been popular, of course. A few years ago I wrote a detective series called
The Amy Carter Mysteries for Top That Publishing.
They're quite popular with children in schools I visit and it's tempting to jump on the nostalgia bandwagon and write another detective series reminiscent of Enid Blyton's popular tales. With my luck though by the time I'd finished it the trend would have moved on and something else would be 'in vogue'. And guessing what the next Big Thing will be is pretty impossible.
What do you think? Is Nostalgia here to stay?
Karen King writes all sorts of books. Check out her website at www.karenking.net
I used to be guilty of it. God help me, I was terrible, and I’m sorry. As a teacher, for years I begged my secondary school pupils, when they were ‘doing’ creative writing, Write what you know. You’ll do a better job, especially in exam conditions. In my defence, there are only so many variations on pixies/wizard schools/families-massacred-by-intruder stories a person can read without going insane. (I did go a smidgeon insane. I realised it when I saw that I had written on someone’s story, This is tiresomely derivative. He was eleven.)
And it’s true that when they simply wrote about something that had actually happened they tended to do it better – but that was 100% because they were deskilled in an education system which marginalises creative writing, notbecause there is something intrinsically good about writing what you know.
I was a complete hypocrite of course. I had never followed WWYK, either as a child, a teenager (my books were pure wish-fulfilment) or as a professional writer.
 |
| some soppy wish-fulfilment, aged 15 |
The word that is most often used about my novels is realistic. I like that. I hate fantasy (sorry, fantasy fans and writers). But it takes a lot of artifice to make something seem realistic, and it certainly doesn’t simply involve writing what you know.
When Taking Flight, my first novel, came out, readers much preferred the voice of the male over the female narrator. This meant a lot to me, because – though instinctively I knew that his voice was more authentic, and certainly had come more easily – there had been, deep-down, a nagging suspicion that perhaps I wasn’t really allowed to write from a male point of view? That it wasn’t playing fair by the WWYK rules. After all, I have never been a teenage boy.
It’s always mattered to me that books write authentically and authoritatively about any subject they tackle. As a pony-mad child, I noticed and cared that K.M. Peyton knew whereof she wrote; when an editor wanted me to describe a grey horse as white I refused: a grey horse is never described as white, even if it is. Many of my readers wouldn’t know, but I wasn’t prepared to break faith with those who did.
But authenticity isn’t the same as WWYK
My new novel, Still Falling, is out on the 26th February. There are no horses. There is love. There is sexual violence. The main character has epilepsy. There is a lot of trauma.
There is a lot in this book that I have never encountered personally. Just as, inGrounded, I wrote about teen suicide with a profound sense of responsibility which involved a lot of research, I took the preparation for writing from the point of view of a character with epilepsy very seriously. I spent weeks on epilepsy support sites, read dozens of books, and – most importantly, as I have done for everything I’ve ever written about – used my imagination. Not just my making-up-stories imagination, but empathy: What would that feel like? Now what would it feel like if I was seventeen? What would it feel like if I was seventeen and this was my first day at a new school where I wanted to stay invisible?
It’s always a bit scary when a new book hits the world. Yesterday I came across a review which, for the first time, went into detail about the epilepsy aspect:
I have to say something, first of all about the way Wilkinson handles her depiction of epilepsy...she has it exactly right. The way she shows what happens with a seizure, the dangers of simply 'falling' and the effects this condition has on a person’s view of themselves, along with the misconceptions and concerns of those who lives are intertwined with someone with epilepsy is spot on. (www.fallenstarreviews.blogspot.com)
Phew. This felt like another endorsement of going beyond WWYK.
I was lecturing Masters Creative Writing students recently. Their tutor mentioned how attached they seemed to be to memoir-writing, and the very first question I was asked was about WWYK. And I said –
Write what you don’t know.
Write about what you want to know.
Write about what you’re very glad you don’t have to know.
Write about what you love.
Write about what you hate.
Write about what scares you.
Write about what excites you.
And to generations of my former pupils – I would say sorry for burdening you with the old WWYK thing, but fortunately no one of you ever took the blindest bit of notice of me. So that’s OK. |
| aged 9 -- orphan heroine sets out in world -- she has never heard of WWYK |
I'm feeling a littleemotional, to be frank. I've spent the past eight years writing three books about a group of talking animals (The Last Wild trilogy), whom I've grown very fond of. Last week I sent the final book off to the printers. I won't be making the animals in it, or any others for that matter, talk again for the foreseeable future.
And, pausing before I blunder off into a whole new imaginative realm, I've been reflecting. Why do we do it? Why do we take these dignified, self respecting other species we share the planet with, and imbue them with often wildly mismatched human characteristics, psychology and dialogue? Why are those characters so perennially popular with younger children? Equally, why are they such a literary turn off for some, and many older readers?
There are many answers to those questions, and they've changed as continuously as human behaviour. One argument is that in making animals talk and walk like us, we seek to play out the mysteries of our deeper and more unknowable feelings. For children, growing slowly cognizant of more complex and challenging human emotions on the adult horizon, animal characters in books can be like a literary version of play therapy, safe proxies through which to navigate those feelings. (Perhaps that equally repels older or adult readers who have no desire for proxies, hungry for the authenticity of real human interaction.)
But that’s the young reader. What’s the appeal to the adult writer, seeking to put words in the mouths of mice? For me, I keep coming back to the haunting story of another writer and his far better-known talking animals.
In 1906, he was nine years old, known to all as ‘Jack’, and living in East Belfast, enjoying a quintessential turn of the century middle-class childhood.
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| The Lewis family, 1906 |
His father Richard was a successful solicitor, and his mother Flora was the daughter of an Anglican priest. His elder brother Warren was away at boarding school in England, but when he was home for the holidays, the boys enjoyed long walks and cycle rides in the leafy suburbs. The spacious house might sound boring for children - with what Jack later described as its “long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude” - but he and Warren happily filled it with imaginary worlds and games of their own, inspired by their father’s substantial library.
But 1906 was the year everything changed for Jack. Quite suddenly, his beloved mother passed away at an early age, from cancer. The world he knew and loved, the idyll of his early childhood - had been changed forever. And Jack’s response was to lose himself in one of the fictional worlds he and Warren - or Warnie - had created together. A world he called ‘Animal Land’ - full of delightful characters such as this natty frog.
In 1907, he wrote to Warnie at his school in England, describing in detail the story of one of Animal Land’s many kingdoms.
My dear Warnie
…I am thinking of writeing a History of Mouse-land and I have even gon so far as to make up some of it, this is what I have made up.
Mouse-land had a very long stone-age during which time no great things tooke place it lasted from 55 BC to1212 and then king Bublich I began to reign, he was not a good king but he fought against yellow land. Bub II his son fought indai about the lantern act, died 1377 king Bunny came next.
Your loving
brother Jacks
Animal Land, which soon evolved into a universe known as “Boxen”, was a complex imagined world created by the two brothers, which blended animal fantasy with mediaeval romances popular at the time and contemporary colonial politics. Crucially, it was conceived as a complete world - with its own rules, boundaries and belief systems. In one story, Jack wrote :
"The ancheint [sic] Mice believed that at sun-set the sun cut a hole in the earth for itself."
Much later in his life, Jack, in his better known identity as C. S. Lewis - wrote in his partial autobiography, Surprised By Joy:
“With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy, but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.”
To a pair of young children dealing with their grief, and shortly, further displacement as Jack was sent to join his brother away at school in England - the history, lives and laws of some imaginary mice or frogs offered the one thing their upturned lives suddenly lacked - security.
It's too simplistic for me to dismiss Narnia, as some do, as a mythical paradise completely driven by Christian allegory. Lewis himself always denied this, famously insisting
“I couldn’t write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion.”
Whether he protests too much or not, the promise of innocence, happiness and peace in a fictional land populated by talking animals would be one Lewis returned to again and again in his Narnia books. Perhaps not just to proselytise. Perhaps also to journey back in the imagination to the secure childhood happiness he could never recover in reality.
I didn’t grow up in Belfast in 1906, and nor did I suffer the tragedy ‘Jack’ did at a young age. I like to think that I had a happy childhood. But I also believe that when you write children’s books, especially those with created worlds, you inevitably write out – directly or indirectly – layers of your own feelings as a child. When you finish those books, and leave that world, in some small way, you finish a part of your childhood too.
And perhaps that’s why I’m feeling emotional.
Piers Torday
@PiersTorday
www.pierstorday.co.uk
Many children’s writers find giving their book a title one of the trickiest parts of the job. It’s an important consideration, though: along with the jacket design and the name of the author, the title of a book is the thing mostly likely to make a potential reader pluck it from the shelf or leave it be. But what strategy works best? Direct or oblique? Short or long?
There is no single answer: both Joan Aiken’s
Is and Russell Hoban’s
How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen strike me as excellent, though they have little in common. (Aiken’s of course would give a present-day marketing department conniptions, being virtually invisible to search engines, but that’s a different matter.) Back in 1950, when my mother was a humble secretary at Geoffrey Bles, C. S. Lewis sent them a manuscript called
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, with a note to the effect that this was obviously just a working title - and it was only at Bles’s persuasion that he used it for the published book. History has proved Bles right, but I can see Lewis’s point too: it
does look like a working title, once you allow for the beer goggles of hindsight.
Titles have their fashions, like anything else. For example, the big Disney blockbusters of recent years have mostly been past participles:
Enchanted,
Frozen,
Tangled (or “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” as I like to think of them). This snappy style is seen as more in keeping with the busy lifestyles and short attention spans of modern children, but it’s a sobering thought that if
Sleeping Beauty and
Cinderella had been made today they would have been called
Prickedand
Slippered.
Around the turn of the millennium there was a vogue in Young Adult fiction for titles that described continuing actions or progressive states, in the form “Verb + ing + Noun”: Gathering Blue, Burning Issy, Missing May and so on. I suppose this was intended to evoke a sense of adolescence as a moving target, a time of change and flux. Any device can be overused, however, and when I wrote Calypso Dreaming (2002) I deliberately reversed the order so as to make my book stand out. How well that strategy worked in terms of sales I leave to historians to record.
If you want to make your own YA title from circa 2000, you can do it by following these simple steps. Turn to page 52 of the book nearest to you and find the first transitive verb; add “ing” to it, and then the name of your first pet. Voilà – there’s your title! (I got Vexing Topsy.)
Alternatively, perhaps you wish to produce a prize-winning children’s novel from the sixties or early seventies? In that case it pays to give it a title in the form:
“The + Slightly-Quirky-Noun-Used-as-Adjective + Noun”
This will confer the air of poignant obliquity so appealing to publishers of that era, home to such books as
The Dolphin Crossing,
The Owl Service,
The Chocolate War and
The Peppermint Pig. Naturally the success of this strategy depends a little on one’s choice of words, so to make it easier I invite you to use the chart below, which contains a selection of words approved by our experts as Puffin-friendly. Simply look for the month and day of your birth to find your own title. There are 84 possible combinations, any of which would, I’m sure, have been a shoo-in for the Carnegie shortlist and warmly recommended by Kaye Webb as “a thoughtful novel about growing up that will appeal to slightly older girls.”
Mine’s The Blue Moon Promise. What’s yours?
By:
Eve Ainsworth,
on 2/9/2015
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Usually I hate February. It’s a dark, bleak little month. Rain dances through the days and frost greets every morning. You have no money and little motivation. Additional weight gained at Christmas still hangs from your waist like a guilty secret and the resolution to take regular jogs feels like a long forgotten joke.
Yep, it’s usually a month I enter with fear and loathing. It’s usually the month I put a big black cross through, before rushing back to bed and reading myself through it.
Except this year! This year was different.
February 2015 would be significant for me in many ways.
1
1. I would leave my job
2. I would run my first Author visit
3. 7 Days would finally be published.
Leaving my job was the first positive more. It was a tiring and stressful job that was no good for me in the long term. A job where I would go home and feel mentally and physically exhausted, barely able to think, let alone type. Resigning was like a strange release and I already know it’s the best thing I could’ve done. Yeah ok, we’re poorer. But I’m calmer and that has to be a good thing, right?
Next was a thing that filled me with fear. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger right? That’s exactly how I felt about stepping out of my comfort zone and entering a brand new school as an author.
I’d done events at my own schools, but this was new and alien. I walked into the building, clutching my bag and trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in the pit of my tummy. BUT it ended up being the best. The students I met were so lovely and engaged and so interested in both 7 Days and my work as an author. I left feeling both inspired and accepted. I realised the buzz I’d gained was a totally new and refreshing experience. This was good for me.
And finally, February was when 7 Days was let out into the big bad world.
And it was a lovely day. I had cake mid-morning (why not). I treated myself to a dress. I received lots of wonderful tweets from supportive followers everywhere. I chatted on-line to other fabulous authors who were being published on the same day. We were all doing different things, but we all felt the same mixture of excitement and anticipation.
Then in the afternoon, I received a wonderful bouquet of flowers from my publisher that so far I have managed not to kill (a new record I feel).
Later, I went for a meal with my husband. I had a lovely cocktail and a delicious Caribbean curry and toasted the start of an amazing year.
Because it will be an amazing year. This will be the first year I can actually admit to myself that I have ‘done it’, I have accomplished a dream. And whatever life throws at me, whatever the new ups and downs – I need to remind myself of this one moment.
The moment when I became a published author.
The moment when I finally felt like me.
Last month, I talked to the school librarians of Hampshire at their annual conference in Winchester. One of the things they had especially asked me to talk about was why children should use books for research rather than the web. As more teachers expect children to do their homework from online sources, it is harder for libraries to make the benefits of books clear. It was good to be asked that, as it's something that's central to a lot of what I do. It's a question I'd not tried to answer before for other people - I just had a vague sense that there were very good reasons. Working out what they are was a really useful exercise.
There are some obvious reasons, such as the availability of books to be read even by students who don't have broadband at home. It's easy to think everyone can be online all the time, but in 2013, only 42% of UK households had broadband, and 17% had no internet at all.
But there are better reasons to make books available to young people in school libraries, and to encourage their use.
You need to know what you want to know
It's easy to find out something (a specific fact, such as the dates of the Civil War or how to make risotto), but quite hard to find out about something. Suppose a young person wanted to find out about dinosaurs. Search for 'dinosaur' on Google and you get 78.8 million hits. Hardly anyone will look beyond the first page.
The web is not written for young people
The first hit is wikipedia (of course), 17,000 words starting, "Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, 231.4 million years ago, and were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for 135 million years, from the beginning of the Jurassic (about 201 million years ago) until the end of the Cretaceous (66 million years ago), when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of most dinosaur groups at the close of the Mesozoic Era. Not child-friendly.
How about the Natural History Museum? It has good info but is not organised in a way that makes it easy for a young student to find what they want. Behind the first, child-friendly, page it goes to a database of dinosaurs that can be sorted in different ways. The information is presented in a dry and relatively unengaging way and if you don't know what you are looking for, it's hard to find what you need.
We could go on.
But let's try something different. Search Amazon (just to look, not to buy anything!) for children's books about dinosaurs and the first hit is National Geographic's
First Book of Dinosaurs. Here's the contents page. Which would you rather look at if you were, say, 9? This or the NHM database?
The web has no gatekeepers or guidanceThe information in a book is generally accurate and unbiased. If a book is about an issue of fact, the facts are on the whole correct. If it is about an issue of opinion, all sides of an argument are presented, equipping the reader to make up his or her mind in an informed way.
My book on evolution came out last year, so I looked to see what a young reader might find online about evolution.This was the fifth hit - looks quite accessble. But all is not as it seems:
“Dinosaurs could not have gone extinct millions of years ago because Earth isn’t that old!”
“Dinosaurs, reptiles that are very different from birds, did not change into birds. God specially created birds on Day Five and dinosaurs on Day Six!”
A child growing up in a Creationist environment (family/school/USA) might encounter this view, but a child in a school library should be safe from minority views being peddled as undisputed fact. That's what homes are for.
Not all facts are true (see above) Some websites look authoritative but have an agenda (not just the Creationist agenda). If you were researching sugar, you might think sugar.org looks like a good start. It is, of course, a sort of sugar-marketing board and would give a vulnerable young reader a completely distorted view of the value of sugar in the diet. And some 'facts' are just wrong, such as this one, widely cited: “According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days now the human race creates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until
2003.” It's true that Eric Schmidt said it,
but that's all. Go back to the sources, and the real fact is that as much information was published, recorded or shared every two days in 2010 as in all of 2002. (And most of it was probably videos of kittens and pictures of people doing something stupid - not useful information.)
The web is a false form of lazinessIt might look as though it's easier for a child to look online than find a book in the library. But it's laziness that backfires.
The web is full of accurate, fascinating information. It's also full of inaccurate, dull garbage. The web is not bad - but using it properly takes time and skill. A book written specifically for children could be based entirely on online research - but the author will have done the hard things:
- finding the right information
- checking the information
- selecting the relevant and interesting information
- presenting the information in an accessible, appropriate way for young readers.
If a young reader goes straight to Google, they have to do all this - and usually they don't, of course. They copy and paste the first thing they come across and learn nothing. Learning to use the web is a vital skill, but learning subject content should not be jeopardised by expecting children to depend on their nascent web skills.
I ended my talk with this chart. I could just have given you the chart and shut up, I suppose. This is why kids learn more from a well-chosen book than a Google search:
Using the web, the pupil has to do all the work - find the information, select it, find a route through it, work out what the words (usually intended for adults) mean, and decide whether the facts are correct. In a book, the author has done all that. The pupil can get on with learning about the subject. They can develop those other vital skills while researching less important content.
Evolution, TickTock (Hachette), September 2014: 9781783251346
How long is too long? This was on my mind this week as I prepared for a trip to Bedfordshire for a whole day visit to a secondary school.
The lovely librarian had booked me in for a three sessions. A two hour slot with the whole of Y9 to talk about my books. Another two hour creative writing workshop, with selected pupils from Y9 and 10. And then (after lunch) an hour with the school’s reading groups, spanning Y10s who had all read my first book, When I Was Joe, Year 9s, some of whom would have spent the entire day listening to me, and Y7s.
I have to admit that I was nervous as I drove up the M1. Two hours seemed a long time to fill. Did I have enough to say to keep the pupils interested? How many writing exercises would fill two hours? Would the Y9s who saw me three times be bored solid by the end of the day?
I’m used to speaking for an hour at a time. Roughly 30 minutes speaking, broken up by a video trailer for my ‘Joe’ trilogy. Then the rest of the session spent in Q&A. I try and involve pupils in thinking about the themes of my books. ‘What would you buy if you won the lottery?’ is a good way of filling time. ‘What would be the most difficult thing about going into witness protection?’
Similarly, a writing workshop for an hour starts with a ten minute chat about writing processes, and getting started. Then half an hour on a writing exercise. Ten minutes talking about the results of the exercise. Then a ten minute Q&A or discussion about the session.
For this visit, I thought I’d do something a bit different, so I prepared a talk based on true or false statements. Was it true or false that I’d once jumped out of a helicopter for work (true). Had I really got a £50,000 advance for my first novel (sadly false). With twenty statements, I thought I’d be talking for at least 40 minutes, but involving the pupils too. Then I’d show them my trailer, and also a nine minute video of clips from the musical that I’m working on, adapted from my book Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery. And then questions, with a prize of a book for the best question.
Session one went well, and actually I think I’d have been fine just talking for 40 minutes without the True or False statement - with just a little bit of interaction. I was ready for a break in the middle, and the videos gave me that. We had half an hour of good questions, and then we ended the session, with 15 minutes to go. One hour, forty five minutes was fine, we agreed, although I’d have preferred one and a half hours ideally. Carolyn, the librarian, said she thought it was important that children learn to concentrate for two hour sessions. Their exams are two hours long at least, she pointed out, they should be able to sit and behave and use their brains.
For the creative writing session, two hours was perfect. The pupils had time to think and discuss their ideas, as we did a plot planning exercise and a character creation/plot creating one too. They asked questions, read out their work, seemed to have fun. It was a more relaxed atmosphere than the one hour workshops I’ve run. At the end there was time to reflect, ask questions and think about how they’d take their ideas forward. To my surprise I ended up convinced that two hours is perfect for a writing workshop.
The hour at the end of the day with the reading groups was just magic. All of the pupils were avid readers, none of them had met an author before, they were interested in everything from differentiating voices in a split narrative, to cover design to my favourite books. I felt that I was in a school that valued reading for pleasure for its own sake, and also for the many benefits it brought its pupils. I would not be at all surprised if Manshead School in Dunstable produces some fabulous writers of its own in years to come, I met so many articulate, interesting and talented students.
One hour sessions are still my comfort zone. But I wouldn’t be worried about two hour slots again. One thing I would make sure though, is to have breakfast first. Domestic crises meant that I arrived at the school having eaten nothing, and I did the first four hours of the day with just a chocolate chip cookie to sustain me. By lunchtime my blood sugar was so low that I could hardly speak. From now on I’m taking nuts and raisins everywhere I go.
By:
Dawn Finch,
on 2/7/2015
Blog:
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National Libraries Day is today (Saturday 7th February 2015) and it is the culmination of a week of festivities and celebrations for the extraordinary work that our libraries and librarians do.
This is a chance to say thank you to our nation’s librarians for the wonderful work they do. It is an opportunity to get people out to visit their library and see the amazing services our libraries offer - and join up if not already a member.
Most of all this is a reminder. This is a loud reminder that libraries matter to us all. On this day we can bond together and send a collective, public message to the decision makers. We can show them that we love and value our libraries and that we recognise that no one else can do the work of a professional librarian,
This is an election year, and so National Libraries Day is an opportunity to show the various political parties that we are a powerful, bonded and supportive group – and we will not stand for the destruction of something that is so vital to all of our communities. This is our chance to celebrate what we value, and what is so essential to the literacy of our entire nation.
National Libraries Day is a grassroots celebration led by library staff and library users. It is supported by CILIP and a coalition of leading literacy, reading, library and education organisations including the Reading Agency, the School Library Association and the Society of Chief Librarians – and you!
In 2014 NLD was hugely successful, but we can make it even bigger this year.
We want to top this list from 2014….
§ Over 603 events were registered on the website,
§ Over 17,000 tweets were made using the hashtag #NLD14 (3 - 9 Feb)
§ It had a social reach of 286,000 through the Thunderclap
§ Nearly 31,000 Facebook users reached
§ Over 8,200 website visits (3-8 Feb)
….and we are well on the way towards beating these figures in 2015
Philip Ardagh knows exactly how to support librarians!
What can you do right now to show your support?
Email a quote or comment: approve a comment on what public libraries mean to you giving permission for us to use it on the NLD website and social media (include a pic we can use) Post this on social media and send to @CILIPinfo or via the NLD comment form.
Retweet our main message: “I’m sending a message that I love libraries & the wonderful work done by librarians.” RT to celebrate National Libraries Day #NLD15
Share your support on social media
Share a library #shelfie or two with caption /comment and upload to the NLD15 Flickr pool or send to us for uploading or tweet it using #NLD15
Lend your talents - Write or create something - could you find the time to write a blog, letter or create a piece of work about what libraries mean to you?
Find an event near you – get out and get into your local libraries (with our without chocolates!). Tell them who you are and let them know that you support them. The NLD map will show you where the registered events are.
We all know how important libraries are, but we can’t save them unless we put up a fight. All over the country both school and public libraries have been saved by public campaigns. Not many, but some. This is just the beginning. It’s not going to be easy, but we have to stand up and fight for what is right. We need to fight to make sure that our communities all get what they deserve; the essential service that only a library staffed by a professional librarian can provide.
Make a noise for libraries, before the silence falls forever.
Dawn Finch - Vice President CILIP
Children's author and library consultant
Those all-important links again...
Links
I was sorting through some old box files recently, and I came across the following correspondence from a few years ago. I thought it made a salutary tale - just in case any of you were approached by this outfit. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say...
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Character UPgrades, inc.
New Caledonia
Dear C.J. Busby,
I am a fan of your Spell series books for children, but I find King Arthur altogether too wet as a character. I would be pleased to offer you a free upgrade to his acumen, fighting skills, strength and agility. Please email me his character profile and I will endeavour to have him returned to you within the week. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Yours, etc.
Character UPgrades, inc.
New Caledonia
Dera C.J. Busby,
Here is your new SuperUPgrade King Arthur character. We hope you will have many hours of fun with him. Please mention us to all your friends when they comment on the new improved version. Our rates are extremely reasonable and satisfaction is guaranteed.
Yours, etc.
Character UPgrades, inc.
New Caledonia
Dear C.J. Busby,
I am sorry you feel your SuperUPgrade King Arthur character is not performing to specifications. However, from your description, I would say he is fulfilling every expectation of the upgrade. He is now a much better swordsman and in effect unbeatable by any other knight in Camelot. I am sorry that as a result Sir Lancelot has gone off in a huff and refuses to be part of the story any more. However, I feel that is your issue to deal with and is entirely down to the flaws in Lancelot's original character specification. I can offer you a once-only 50% discounted upgrade to Lancelot. If you wish to take up my offer please email me the character profile and I will invoice you via PayPal. Satisfaction is guaranteed.
Yours, etc.
Character UPgrades, inc.
New Caledonia
Dear C.J. Busby,
Here is your new SuperUPgrade Lancelot character. We hope you will have many hours of fun with him. Please mention us to all your friends when they comment on the new improved version. Our rates are extremely reasonable and satisfaction is guaranteed.
Yours, etc.
Character UPgrades, inc.
New Caledonia
Dear C.J. Busby,
As clearly laid out in the terms and conditions to which you were deemed a consenting party by virtue of mailing us your character specifications, the actions of our upgraded characters are entirely the responsibility of their author and no liability can be accepted on behalf of UPgrades, inc. We delivered a fully compliant Lancelot character who was willing to be beaten in single combat by your SuperUPgrade King Arthur. It is in no way the responsibility of this company that the resulting plot lines have come unravelled. Character UPgrade, inc. did not include a 'bard theme' in the upgraded specification, so Lancelot's subsequent decision to become a wandering minstrel is obviously a result of character flaws that were part of the original specification. We are, however, willing to perform a tricky overwrite on your Guinivere and Arthur characters so as to smooth over the resulting strife you are experiencing in your story. This is a specialist job, however, and we cannot offer it to you for less than full price plus overtime calculated at 150% plus VAT. Please mail your character specifications by return for complete satisfaction guaranteed.
Character UPgrades, inc.
New Caledonia
Dear C.J. Busby,
Here is your new SuperUPgrade Guinivere and SuperUPgrade Mark II Arthur character. We hope you will agree they are now in complete harmony and we hope have many hours of fun with them. Please mention us to all your friends when they comment on the new improved version. Our rates are extremely reasonable and satisfaction is guaranteed.
Yours, etc.
Character UPgrades, inc.
New Caledonia
Unfortunately, it is impossible to return your characters to their original specification as the original data has been permanently over-written. Have a nice day.
Yours, etc.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
All illustrations copyright David Wyatt.
C.J. Busby writes fantasy adventures for children aged 7-12. Her Spell series (from which these illustrations are taken) follows the adventures of accident-prone would-be wizard apprentice Max Pendragon and his sister Olivia in their attempts to save King Arthur from the plotting of his evil sister Morgana le Fay.
"Great fun - made me chortle!" (Diana Wynne Jones)
The first book in her latest series,
Deep Amber, was published in March 2014 by Templar.
"A rift-hoping romp with great wit, charm and pace" (Frances Hardinge)
www.cjbusby.co.uk @ceciliabusby
In my blog for An Awfully Big Blog Adventure back in December, I shared a list of some of my favourite teen and young adults books that I'd read in 2014. You can read that blog here - Favourite Teen/YA reads of 2014. Commenting on the blog, David Thorpe asked me an interesting question – why were those books in particular on my favourite reads of the year? His question made me wonder if there was something that linked the books, a shared theme, a particular voice, or a genre. I looked at the list and at first thought: no, the books are all very different. Some of them were written in the first person present, others in the third person past; some had a male POV, others a female. Many of them were set in different parts of the world, or in an alternative world, or in a different time.
All the books in my list are richly diverse in terms of when and where they are set. Most of them are set in different countries, from Denmark to Ireland, Germany to the USA, and I think that’s part of their lure for me. Many of the books are set in a different time or era: from the 19thCentury to a version of the future, or even a parallel time.
Some of the books are fairy tale like. The Hob and the Deerman reads like a wonderful fairy tale and reminds me of all the fairy stories I read as a child. I would happily invite a Hob to come and share my home. Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood and Co, is set in London – but although the places in the book may be familiar to a Londoner, it’s not quite like the London we know. It’s beset by ghosts and ghouls that only children have the ability to see and deal with. So, when darkness falls, the adults lock their doors, leaving the child agents to do their work.
It was just as I finished reading Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys at Christmas, that I realised there wasa common thread between all the books in my list. Out of the Easy is the story of Josie, the daughter of a prostitute in New Orleans in the 1950’s. It’s a book that I would definitely include in my list of favourite teen/YA reads of 2014.
It is the fact that they are set in a different time and place and sometimes in a different world which sets these books apart, and I think that’s what I love about them. All the writers beautifully evoke their setting, so that by the time you’ve finished their book you come away feeling as though you really know that place.
It’s not only the variety of world settings or time they’re set in that set these books apart for me, but also the variety in the lives of the characters. In both of Tanya Landman’s books, Buffalo Soldier and Apache, the main characters are girls: one is a black slave and the other is an orphaned Apache. If I had a teenage daughter, I would be recommending them to her. (Luckily I have nieces to whom I can recommend books!) But my teen son has no problem with books where the main character is a girl, and is interested in reading both.
The choice available in many bookshops these days does not fully reflect the diversity and richness of teen and young adult fiction. Although bookshops have more space devoted to teen/YA fiction, a lot of that space is still devoted to genre fiction, or to the bigger well-known authors. It would be great to see much more diversity on their shelves too. Most main libraries stock far more richly diverse fiction, although, sadly, smaller local libraries are seeing their stocks dwindle, in some cases (as here in Barnet) being purposely run down by councils prior to being closed or scaled down. Yes, you can still request a book from another library, and in some libraries they will order it for you if it’s not in any of the borough’s libraries. But most of these libraries are now run by volunteers or library assistants, and this is true of virtually all of Barnet’s libraries, and whilst they are good, a qualified librarian’s skills and guidance are not available to kids looking for help. As a child and a teenager, Wycombe Library had a brilliantly stocked library, fantastic librarians, and the choice of children’s books was astounding – I should know as I read practically every book in there!
Here’s an unashamed plug for libraries - it’s National Libraries Day on February 7
th. Events are happening in libraries across the country from Friday 6
th into the following week. If you have a minute, check out the link here to see what’s going on in your local library.
Here’s the hashtag for National Libraries Day on Twitter #NLD15
Or share a library #shelfie
Follow @NatLibrariesDay on Twitter and you’ll know what’s going on.
So the books are there – if you can find them or have been made aware of them. I’m hoping 2015 will be even more richly diverse in teen and young adult literature. I’m sure I’ve missed a few great reads in 2014, so please feel free to leave your recommendations in the comments. And I’d love to hear what makes a book stand out for you.
My website Twitter
Ever since 1962 when both Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and JG Ballard's The Drowned World (number one in his 'disaster quartet') were published, tens of thousands of non-fiction but perhaps only scores of fiction titles have addressed environmental and, specifically, climate change-related issues.
Ballard's quartet has been cited as an early example of 'climate fiction' or 'clifi', identified as a new label by the journalist Dan Bloom. Climate fiction specifically contains references to climate change. I interview Dan about it here.
I would say that there are perhaps more clifi books for children/teens than adults.
Ian McEwan's Solaror Margaret Atwood's Madaddam trilogy are examples of clifi for adults.
Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block, Saci Lloyd's
The Carbon Diaries 2015,
The Ward by Jordana Frankel,
After the Snow by S. D. Crockett and Georgia Clark’s
Parched are examples of clifi books for older children. More are
here.
But can fiction ever change minds? Or does it merely confirm existing attitudes in the mind of the reader who chooses to read a book of that nature?
And are more clifi titles aimed at children because their enquiring minds are supposed to be more open?
These questions are thrown into relief by
research showing that logic and reason count for little in debates about the reality of climate change among adults.
Much clifi has concentrated on the destructive aspects of climate change, being variants of dystopian or disaster novels. New writer Paulo Bacigalupi, author of
The Water Knife, has even coined a new term: "accidental future" novels, i.e. novels that describe an unintended consequence of present human activity.
There is a greater challenge, however, that fewer writers are engaging in with fiction – although plenty have in non-fiction – and that is to create stories in which people successfully tackle climate change, devising solutions that rise to the challenges.
There are a few, beginning with Ernest Callenbach's
Ecotopia (1975) and Marge Piercy's
Woman on the Edge of Time. But can you think of any for children?
I believe it is essential that children are given hope that the future will not be necessarily full of catastrophe.
We should be empowering them. After all, so many children's books are supposed to do this, aren't they? "You can fulfil your dream. You can beat the bully. You can defeat the enemy."
But climate change is not something tangible or immediate, it is a vast and vague. It's scary and discouraging.
If we are to stimulate the imagination of the world's children so they do not feel hopeless and disempowered by the overwhelming scale and prospects of climate change, fiction must play a vital role in helping them envisage how they can successfully live in the future.
The winner of the Guardian Children's Book Prize 2014,
Piers Torday's The Last Wild is a good example of an environmental fable that gives hope, but it is not about climate change.
Such fiction might show children what a successful future could be like and even paint a picture of a good place to be in that is realistic and possible. A future where not only are children given a full part to play in society, but society itself is structured in a way that works with, not against, nature.
There are plenty of non-fiction books that do this but non-fiction is for specialists (planners, politicians, engineers, architects), and fiction, especially if translated into film, can be for the masses.
Fiction reaches places that non-fiction can never reach.
So, writers, how about it?
David Thorpe is the author of clifi YA fantasy Stormteller and the SF dystopia Hybrids.
By:
Heather Dyer,
on 2/2/2015
Blog:
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One reason that new writers have their books rejected is because their writing style doesn't match the content: either the language is too sophisticated for such a simple storyline - or the story is too long or complicated for the target readership.
Admittedly, it's difficult to categorize books into specific age categories. Children are individuals, after all. Some advanced readers might not be very worldly-wise, and won't yet be ready for 'grittier' stories. Meanwhile, some of their peers may be ready for 'older' content but can't handle more sophisticated language.
But to give your story the best chance of publication, the content needs to match the writing style for that particular age category.
The publishing and bookselling industry tries to help buyers by dividing books into four main groups: picture books, young or early readers, middle grade readers (an American term) and young adult novels. As part of a new course I'm teaching in Writing for Children, I’ve started trying to identify qualities common to books in each age category. Boundaries will be blurred - but I'd love to know what you think of this chart. Am I right?
Picture books Age 0-5 | Early readers 5-7 | Middle grade 7-11 | YA fiction 12+ |
0 - 200 words 24,32 or 40 pages. | 500-1,500 | 10-20,000 | 50,000+ |
Full colour illustrations | Black and white line drawings every other page | Black and white line drawings every few pages. | No illustrations |
Domestic or fantasy settings | Usually domestic settings. | Domestic magic and high fantasy. Realistic settings with parental supervision unless there’s a good reason (fantasy) | The wider world. High fantasy. |
| Larger font size, restricted vocabulary. Dialogue. | Large proportion of dialogue, more complex. | |
| Shorter sentences | More sophisticated sentences. | Lots of interior monologue, reflection, longer speeches. |
Text works with illustrations. | Very short paragraphs. | Paragraphs a bit longer. | |
Nearly no description | Minimal description, but a few sparkling details true to a young reader’s perception of the world. | Detailed setting and character description. | Detailed setting and character description. |
Usually in third person | Usually in third person. Some character development possible. | Usually in third person. Rounded characters. Character development more obvious. | Often in first person, and present tense. It’s all about me. |
Anthropomorphism, inanimate objects made animate. Familiar roles, settings, objects. | A talking animal almost always points to an early reader. Children in comic or adventure situations, usually having a good time, nothing too awful happens. | Children in danger, frightening situations, facing fears and fighting good and evil. But the real world isn’t too real. | Can be very dark and realistic. Dystopian futures, tragedy, abuse, drugs, etc. Also comedy sex/romance. |
| No sex or romance. | Romance is light and about friendships. Or subliminal. | Anything goes. |
For the youngest bracket, not necessarily stories with problems solved, but simply an exploration of the world. | Often deal with smaller problems resolved in a shorter time frame. Stakes are lower. | Children with flaws, interactions with peers. Children save the day or resolve things themselves. Growing understanding of the world and their place in it. | Young adults dealing with finding their own way in the world, changing the world or making a name for themselves; asserting themselves; finding own values. |
Can be present tense. | Past tense, no leaping around in time or flashbacks. | Still rarely using flashbacks unless short recollections by a character. | Can play with chronology; transitions, flashbacks etc. |
Happy endings or comforting closure. | Happy endings. | Happy or at least hopeful endings. | Usually at least hopeful, but recently have been a few with bleak endings. |
Listen to RLF Fellows talk on the subject 'Why I Write'
This morning I killed someone. I got up early while the house was quiet and did it and then howled. It was tough. I hadn’t planned it. It came over me suddenly with huge conviction that it was the right thing to do. But it wasn’t easy.
I’ve known the person for two years or more and had never thought of killing her. But I did it. Now I’m bereft. But bad things happen. My story was too calm. Too stitched up at the end. How can one be working in one direction and then do such an about turn that you become a murderer overnight? And how can one feel so utterly sad about someone who is completely made up in your own head? Before writing them into the story, they didn’t exist, except in your deep consciousness. Is it the same deep consciousness that impels you to kill the person as well? I don’t know. All I know is that I hated doing it but the story is stronger.
I’m at my sea house… seems harsh to say this… when I know how cold it still is in the northern hemisphere right now… but I’m wondering if this house has an impact on my writing. In London I live so cramped and envy writers who have huge expanses of wild countryside to tramp while they solve their plots. Here I have nine kilometres of pristine sand and sea with a wild rocky outcrop at the end. As I write in the early mornings the salt air wafts in heavy with the smell of the sun on the wild indigenous coastal ‘fynbos.’
Do writers all have special places that unlock more – memory palaces not in the true mnemonic sense (I might be able to write that but can’t say it without stumbling) but places that make writing easier? Less about bricks and mortar and more about a space onto which we can project our dreams, hopes and fears? Like opening a drawer and suddenly the smell of it brings the memories and stories spilling out?
I’ve been writing this novel for more than two years now and I’m still polishing the stones of it that tumble around in my head and still finding the bleached bones buried in the sand. Perhaps now is the time to let it go? If Liz Kessler’s blog was
The Spring of Ideas… perhaps mine is
The Summer of Fruition. I’ve posted this video below on ABBA before when I originally made it as a response to place. But perhaps a bit of summer sunshine might not be misplaced. It was my first attempt at stitching visuals and music together so the loop in the music pauses in the middle but then picks up again.
Matt Haig tweeted recently: ‘
Fiction is just a dream we have that we try to externalise.”
Twitter @dihofmeyr
ZERAFFA GIRAFFA by Dianne Hofmeyr, illustrated by Jane Ray, published by Frances Lincoln made the Top 100 Classics in the past 10 years List in THE SUNDAY TIMES and the Best Picture Book List for 2014 in The Times on Saturday.
It was with great sadness that we at ABBA heard of the death of Pauline Fisk, writer of Midnight Blue and many other much-loved children's books, a few days ago on 25th January. Pauline blogged for ABBA for a time, and Penny Dolan has volunteered her usual slot so that we could repeat one of Pauline's posts. This is the last one she wrote for us, in May 2013, and it says so much about her breadth of vision, her sense of adventure, and her concern that children's imaginations should be nurtured.
Our thoughts and our sympathy are with Pauline's family.
Sue Purkiss
 |
| Pauline Fisk |
This is my last post, regretfully. Life and all its busyness has galloped ahead of me and needs reining back. Before I step down, however, I want to share with you some things I said the other night at Keele University’s Keele Link Awards Ceremony.
I began with a story, because stories are what I do best and they’re also the means by which I make sense of the world. Five years ago now, as some of you will know, I was out in Belize, funded by the British Arts Council, researching gap year volunteering for my novel In The Trees. I wasn’t an adventurous type. I was a sixty year-old, asthmatic, stay-at-home author who’d never been anywhere more tropical than Rome in November. What had kicked me out of my office, however, was the power of imagination.
And it was imagination that I was at Keele to talk about. That same imagination that 'will get you everywhere', according to Albert Einstein, whilst logic 'only gets you from A to Z'. ‘I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination,’ he said. ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’ And, again, from Picasso, ‘Everything you can imagine is real.’
Well, six years before my Belize trip, my son Idris Davies experienced what was real about that country as a gap year volunteer. I’d waved goodbye to a white-faced, spotty [the result of back–to-back shifts in McDonalds] youth and returned to the airport five months later to greet a person who was literally, physically unrecognisable. By that I mean that when I saw Idris talking to my husband, I thought the tall man in the Trekforce t-shirt was one of the leaders of the trip explaining why our son had missed the plane. Idris’s entire body shape had changed, but it wasn’t muscles, hair or tan that rendered him unrecognizable. It was the way he inhabited his body, as if it wasn’t an accidental appendage but he was actually in charge of it.
Now there’s a story, I immediately thought. As an author of young adult novels, how could I not? What happened to young gap year volunteers when they went off on those rites of passage projects? What changed them - and how?
Six years later, I was in Belize finding out. Six years, I have to say, of struggling not to go out there, because I wasn’t the sort of writer who wrote those sorts of books. I was a stay-at-home gal. I couldn’t afford it. Other writers would do it better. My publishers wouldn’t be interested. My agent would think it was a bad idea. Nobody was writing gap year novels for young teenagers – and I was terrified of snakes.
What drove me out there, against all odds? It wasn’t my publishers being interested after all, my agent thinking it was a good idea and the money for the trip coming in. It was the power of imagination that sent me to Belize. A story had me in its grip, and I didn’t know exactly how that story might unfold, but I knew that if I went out to this unknown country in Central America, it would come. My Kevin Costner moment. If you build it, they will come.
So, imagination. The realm of creative, slightly batty, forgetful types like Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso - and me. I think not. The realm of all of us – that’s what I went to Keele University to say. What happened to me with In The Trees was that I was captured by an idea. It got me so tightly that it wouldn’t let go. And that’s exactly what had happened to the young people I went out to meet. There, miles from civilization, guarded by soldiers because their project was so dangerous, I found groups of young school leavers trekking into the jungle and enduring hideously primitive living conditions because the idea of saving the rain forest had lodged itself in their heads and wouldn’t be removed. They’d had the imagination to see what might happen if nothing was done - and they were doing what they could.
When did your imagination first kick off? I have a photo somewhere of myself at the age of three making up stories for the big children next door. They’re lined up on one side of the garden wall and I’m on the other and they’re asking what happened next…and next…and next… and I’m telling them.
I believe I was privileged to grow up in an age where imagination was valued. At my primary school my ability to make up and write stories was encouraged. I was made to feel special because of what I could do. But anybody who had half a good idea was made to feel special too. These were the years after the war when the country was trying to grow itself again and its young people were not just its future but valued as a resource.
There was so much freedom back in those days. Half my childhood was spent lurking around back alleys, looking for fairies under bramble bushes, going early to the local park so that I could sit and enjoy it all on my own, making dens in the undergrowth and stories in my head. I travelled alone on the underground. My parents would put me on a bus on one side of London and I’d be met off it on the other. Apart from that little matter of sums and science, languages and sport [in other words, all the things I wasn’t good at in school] I was free. And my imagination was free.
Even when my children were growing up, they too were free. We lived out in a Shropshire village on the edge of the Long Mountain. Summer holidays were spent playing cowboys in the long grass of the churchyard next door [when funerals weren’t taking place] or damming up the local stream.
There’s a tendency, I know, to say that things aren’t what they used to be in the good old days. By which we mean our good old days. Well, surprise, surprise, children are born and growing up with every bit as much imagination as children ever were. The big question now, though, is what happens to it.
Nowadays nobody in that village allows their children to play down the stream. Not since the funny man was there, trying with some woman to get children into his car. So often now it’s fear that fuels people’s imaginations, not opportunities. Who might be lurking round the corner, waiting to pounce? What are governments really up to if we only knew the truth? When will Peak Oil happen and the world as we know it come to an end?
I think we have some very real reasons to be fearful sometimes. But with imagination we can overcome our fears, or at the very least work our way round them. Imagination doesn’t have to bring out the worst in us. It can turn our problems into opportunities. And that’s surely where education comes in.
Children need to be given space for their imaginations to flourish. And they need this space in school, not just afterwards between home time and bed. You want to know what I fear? Here’s an example for you. Imagine a local rural primary school. This is one I know well - I’m not making it up. It’s a lovely school full of lovely children in the middle of lovely countryside - hills, valleys, rivers and verdant woodland. The school’s environment is entirely nurturing. If anywhere in this country is going to turn out free-thinking, imaginative children you’d expect this to be it. But, come the end of the academic year, the Head wants artwork from the top class to go on display – and there is none. Why not? Do I need to spell it out? I certainly didn’t the other night. The children and their teacher had been too busy keeping up with the National Curriculum to have any time left over for art.
Is this really possible? This school? What’s happening here? And if this is what’s happening all over, what do we do?
My connection with Keele came about through the Children’s University, of whom Michael Morpurgo is National Chancellor and I’m Shropshire’s Chancellor. If you want an organisation that’s stimulating children’s imaginations you need look no further. Here it’s very much the children who take the lead, coming up with ideas and dragging themselves, their parents and their teachers off to do or see whatever it is that interests them. And it's not just a cosy, middle-class organisation either. Shropshire's Children's University is operating in some of the most deprived areas in the county. I’m proud to be associated with an organisation like that.
If we don’t see our children’s imaginations fed and stimulated, then the scientists of the future are a thing of the past, the artworks of the future will be black on black, the designers, the thinkers, the builders, the workers of the future – and those craft workers whom the government has just, in yet another of their fits of total madness, announced in a white paper are no longer part of the creative industry – where will they all be?
I don’t need to end here with John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ to make my point. Instead I’m going to end where I started – with Albert Einstein and his imagination encircling the world. In his Commendation of In The Trees, Rafael Manzanero, the Chief Executive of the Belizean NGO responsible for the protection of that country’s rainforest,wrote that people like us really could make a difference to our planet, even though it seems we’re worlds apart. ‘It is not only moral to do so,’ he wrote,‘but the survival of forests will make the planet a better place for human life.’
THIS is the idea that caught hold of a group of young people – that not only governments and multi-national charitable organisations could make a difference to the world around them; they could too. According to Rafael Manzanero it’s been an effective and lasting difference too. And, in the face of illegal logging, poacher activities, unlicensed gold-panning, crime syndicates, the organized smuggling of everything from jaguar cubs to Mayan artefacts - it takes some imagination to achieve a result like that.
Today, a guest blog from Pauline Francis - many thanks, Pauline!
I’ve just finished a year as a Writer-in-Residence and want to share some of the pain and pleasure (mostly pleasure). It was my first residency - and a learning curve for me as well as the students. I forgot to take my camera on the day, but this is me at home afterwards.
Where?
The Residency was at a mixed secondary international college in Hertfordshire, which I visit regularly as a YA author, working with the English and History Faculties as well as the library.
Aim?
To improve the creative writing skills of the participants, publish an anthology of their work and raise the awareness of creative writing generally.
Value Added?
I live only ten minutes’ walk from the school, so I was able to offer ‘value added’ such as parents’ evenings, book clubs, writing ‘surgeries’ and one memorable World Book Night for the boarders, with cocoa and biscuits, reading from our favourite books (this is a state school that takes boarders from across the world, which made this writing project particularly interesting).
My students?
The college wanted to choose the participating students through a Short Story competition launched at the school’s first World Literature Festival, which included the opening of a new library wing by Kevin Crossley-Holland. He chose the theme for the competition, ‘Where is Home?’ So the residency had a high profile from the beginning.
I judged the stories and chose ten pupils of mixed ages and genders to use those stories for the residency programme, choosing them for potential as well as actual skill, as we all know that sometimes a germ of a good idea is worth more than perfect writing.
We met as a group twice a term and 2-3 times a term individually, in the library, in lesson time.
How to begin?
I wanted our time together to be different from the students’ lessons. I had plenty of ideas about what makes a good short story and I knew that I’d incorporate them into the sessions; but I wanted to make an impact in the first group session. The students were keen but nervous. I was keen but nervous.
Starting the residency was as difficult as starting a new novel!
How could I break the ice? I hadn’t been keen on the idea of a competition for entry and students already thought their stories were good because they’d worked on them for weeks ….
They had to look at my published book and think: if she can do it, so can I.
I decided to expose myself….I took along some old drafts of my novels and compared them to the published versions. There’s an example below. Students said they were surprised (they were probably too polite to say shocked) by my earlier drafts; but it engaged them.
This is an example of a first draft from Raven Queen, when I was struggling to describe the childhood home of Lady Jane Grey (I find descriptions difficult):
“I lived at Bradgate House, a house built by my father’s father, Thomas Grey, who died when I was two years old. He used to boast that the forest beyond – Charnwood Forest- was big and that he had laid water pipes from the stream to the house. The town of Leicesterwas about five miles to the east.”
(Jane is the narrator)
This is the published version:
“Visitors usually gasp with pleasure when they first arrive. It is thought to be one of the finest houses in Leicestershire; but Ned gazed past its red brick towers, past its gardens soon to be brimming with fruit and blossom, past the stream which fed water pipes to the kitchen – to the darkening trees beyond.
‘I like the forest best at dusk when birds cloud the sky,’ he said.”
(Jane is still the narrator but the house is seen through a visitor’s eye and linked to an emotion)
The hard work began. Students had to justify every word, every character, every time span, every conflict and every piece of dialogue. They drafted and re-drafted week after week, which they did with amazing cheerfulness. Only one student refused to make any more changes to her story after the first term. Fair enough! Her story was wonderful from the beginning and we discussed short stories in general in our time together.
During the last term, students had to read their stories to me, something that they found very difficult; but it did produce the final burst of creativity needed to polish every story to perfection.
And so we had our stories: heart-breaking, uplifting, depressing and amusing. There were stories of homecomings and leavings set in Africa, Cyprus and Germany, and of lost souls searching for a home after sudden deaths. Every one made me cry.
My husband edited. The students wrote author bios and ‘Where is Home?’ was published in-house and sold for charity at a celebratory tea during the following year’s literary festival.
It was an amazing and bonding experience for us all.
*
The lowlights ….
- The programme was run though the library and restricted to a few students, although others had general access to me in the lunch hours.
- I had little or no contact with the staff and other Faculties and did no work with them on any other literacy activities.
- I disliked choosing through a competition.
- I could not contact the students directly through email, which slowed down the re-drafting.
- All meetings were arranged through a member of the library staff, which takes more time, however efficiently it is done.
- I forgot my camera for the final session.
and the highlights….
- The students gained in confidence generally and this improved their English (some had English as a second language). They also read more.
- They bonded as a group and met to read aloud sometimes (especially the boarders).
- Other students became interested and arranged ‘Writing Surgery’ appointments.
- Parents entered the writing competition (although they were not included in the programme) and this led to increased interest in the library.
- Students (not just those on the programme) entered other local and national writing competitions.
- Students on the programme shared their experience during English lessons.
- Students blogged/tweeted about their experience.
- The look of pride on the writers’ faces when they saw their work in print.
I’d love to hear other writers’ experiences of any residencies they’ve done – short or long. For me, it was the highlight of my writing career. I’ve asked the students to keep their first drafts as I do…and to look at them from time to time to see how base metal can change into gold.
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