How to use this Page

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Once your site is established and hopefully attracting visitors, it’s good to know just how effective your presence on the World Wide Web actually is. You’ll know which specific areas of your site are getting the most visitors if you have access to good statistics, which are usually provided as part of your web hosting package. These are much more useful than the traditional visitor counter, which indicates how many people have been to your site since a particular date. This can sometimes be detrimental, especially if you are declaring to the person that they are only the forty seventh visitor since January 2005.

Good statistics are invaluable, because they tell you not only how much traffic your site is getting, but also precisely where the visitors are coming from. This can help you to target your marketing to specific areas of the country or around the world. It can also help you determine which of your professional memberships are the most worthwhile when it comes time to renew them. If a particular group is the source of a fair amount of traffic, it’s a good one in which to retain your membership. If another organization has very few referrals to your website, it may be advisable to spend your money elsewhere.

Your home on the Internet can be as simple or as complicated as you desire. Websites aren’t for everyone, but today if you want to get noticed, it’s highly advisable to have one.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

A good way to attract repeat visitors to your web site is to add some interactive elements. You can always include some children’s games, whether they’re arcade type activities or simple puzzles. My own website has a page with word search puzzles related to the plots and characters of all of the novels, all of which I created myself.

Some authors similarly have crossword puzzles or quizzes about their own books. You might even have bookmarks that children can print out or colouring pages, if you’ve produced a picture book.

If you are offering any kind of classes or instructions for aspiring authors, maybe you can offer creative tips and advice for writers on a regular basis. If you’ve published a cookery book, you could post a recipe of the month. Perhaps you have a site dedicated to your non-fiction book about parenting, where again you can offer a new tip for families every week. The same would apply to a website showcasing your book on gardening, home renovation, pet care or really any topic or genre that lends itself to advice bulletins that people will look forward to seeing.

If your site has something cool to do, rather than simply having visitors reading your text, no matter how interesting your web copy may be, people will visit more often. They will also invariably stay longer, explore more of your pages, thus learning more about you in the process and increasing the chances that they will buy your books.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

When creating content for your website, biographical details are a must, but don’t be tempted to go overboard. Your website may be your home in cyberspace, but it’s a marketing tool too.

Pictures of you with your family or pets certainly present a good, wholesome image, but don’t overdo it. Photographs from your professional life are far more beneficial. If you have a picture of you shaking hands with a celebrity at a black tie function, by all means put it on the site. If you have photographs taken at your presentations and workshops in schools or libraries, use those pictures as well.

Try to display the cover art of all your books and show people where they are available and the price. This applies not just to your home country, but other countries too, if your books are distributed elsewhere.

My own site connects directly to each novel’s pages at Amazon worldwide, as shown in this example. I also post links to the professional organizations I belong to, plus the major online bookstores, my publisher, arts organizations and so on. There are pages devoted to the historical background behind four of my books, such as this one, with all these pages containing links to websites with a wealth of information for my readers.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

It’s been said that everyone can have fifteen minutes of fame. With the advent of the Internet, the amount of time we can all spend in the public eye changed somewhat. Today anyone can have a website, providing them with visibility all over the world. Maybe you’re just starting out as a writer. Perhaps you’re self-published, or an established author with three or four books to your name. You could be with a small publisher or a big one.

Today, websites play crucial role in the way the world does business. Companies lacking an online presence might as well be invisible. Authors are no different. You may have written the world’s greatest book, but if no one knows about it, then it might as well not exist. You need to get yourself online if you want to get noticed.

So what sort of material should you think about putting on your web pages? Since you are a writer, we should assume that both readers and potential readers are generally interested in you and your work, so you can include all kinds of things on a website. However, search engines look for certain words, so the most appropriate ones need to be carefully incorporated into the text on the top 25% of your home page. If author, books, writer, story, literature, Canada, USA and just about anything even remotely related to what you do are part of the web page copy, your site will usually be ranked higher in directory queries.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Many people are adversely affected each year by the winter blues, and writers are no exception. There are many ways to combat SAD, including antidepressants and other medications, but bright artificial light treatments are common as a means to give the body more exposure to the light that is lacking once winter approaches. For SAD sufferers, shorter days and long nights can initiate depression, excessive fatigue and other issues. Not simply the ‘winter blues’, seasonal affective disorder is recognized as a form of depression, which can have serious consequences.

However, you don’t have to mourn the passing of summer by looking ahead with a sense of impending doom and there are many ways to cope with feelings of lethargy and mood shifts in fall and winter.

Make your home or writing workplace brighter by opening blinds, perhaps even adding extra windows and trim tree branches or bushes close to the house that block sunlight.

If a trip to warmer latitudes isn’t in your budget, get outside as much as you can, taking advantage of the sunshine even on cold winter days. Regular physical exercise can also help with stress relief and prevent the onset of SAD. Feeling more fit makes you feel better about yourself overall and generally improves your mood.

Giving in to those winter blues can also be stressful and lead to overeating, overindulgence in alcohol or other unhealthy pursuits, so you need to take care of your body, watch your diet and get enough sleep.

Make time to relax and get away from your writing once in a while, especially if you work at home. And even if you do suffer from cabin fever, make sure you invite people into that cabin for a tea or coffee on occasion during the winter or at least go to visit theirs. Writing is a solitary and often lonely profession and staying connected with your friends and acquaintances, and not just on-line, is vital if you are to get through the winter.

SAD may be a fact of life for many people out there, but it doesn’t have to be a sad part of your life during the darker winter months, so keep writing and get that book finished. After all, there may be someone in a sunnier place beating you to it.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

There are undoubtedly many writers who may suffer from SAD and who are as a result less motivated to write in the winter months. And yet, when we think of our ancestors who had no access to artificial light to illuminate the gloom of winter, they still managed to write and their work is no less impressive.

Early Man may have created his cave paintings in the daytime when ferocious wild beasts were less likely to be around. Yet the caves themselves would certainly have been very dark and the pictures painted by the light of a flaming torch.

Fast forward to the classical world of Greece and Rome and the great works of Plato, Aristotle, Virgil and so many others may have been composed at night, with very little illumination.

Monks in the Middle Ages would also have worked all year round and such works as Beowulf or the Anglo Saxon chronicle would never have been written if everyone in the scriptorium had SAD.

But did Shakespeare only write in the spring and summer? Candlelight was his only option if he chose to write his plays and sonnets after the sun had set. The same applied to Samuel Pepys, who we can assume wrote at least a portion of his diary entries in the evening as he recorded his reflections on the day. And Pepys didn’t just write about his experiences in the spring and summer, but throughout the year. And of course Charles Dickens was a prolific writer for twelve months of each year, with only candlelight, oil or gas lamps to enable him to write in all four seasons.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

The effects of the changing of the season on a person’s mood and energy level, even those people in apparent good health, are well documented and it is common for people living at high latitudes to experience lower energy levels in the winter months, both north and south of the equator.

So how does this affect those engaged in the business of writing?

Are those writers in Canada, the northern USA, Alaska and Scandinavia less prolific in their output in the winter months?

Does the cloud cover in Seattle or Vancouver or the rainy climate in Britain and Ireland reduce the amount of literary work originating in those areas?

Do American writers in Florida create more prose between October and April than their counterparts in Minnesota or the Dakotas?

Is a writer in Australia or South Africa more likely to produce a larger body of work because he or she has the advantage of more sunlight?

Many of us may prefer to escape to the sunnier environment of Mexico or the Caribbean each winter, but would it be to our advantage to live there permanently, in order to become more proficient at our chosen craft?

Is a writer deprived of winter sunshine less likely to write that best selling novel in the colder months than his colleague elsewhere who may have the advantage of more hours of sunshine per year?

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

While its very important to do your own homework in terms of discussing schedules with the teachers, organizing your presentations, planning your topics to fill a week or more as an author in residence, selecting subject matter appropriate to each audience, ensuring that all financial matters are in order and so on, before embarking on a school visit, the experience is usually very rewarding for children’s authors. School visits allow you to talk about your own work, your inspiration, your future projects, answer questions, sell some autographed copies of your books, and present yourself to a entirely new audience or geographic area. Writing in any discipline can be a solitary, even lonely profession, but children’s authors do have the opportunity to visit to schools and libraries, allowing you to connect with your readers on a personal level. Children are also thrilled to meet an author, especially if they are familiar with your work, and if they are not, you will most likely gain a whole new set of readers as a result of your visit to the school.

An author visit can also be very beneficial to the school, inspiring the students and encouraging them in their own writing or just getting them excited about books and reading. You may also help them to explore their own artistic creativity, whether this involves writing, illustration, painting, poetry, sculpture, photography, film or another discipline altogether and ultimately, you may even make a real difference in the lives of some of your readers.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Children are almost always inspired when they meet a real life author or illustrator, but it may not always be possible to have an author visit your school. However, why not put technology to work for you? Now you can arrange a virtual author visit via video using Skype. These can be conducted with large groups in a library or gym or with individual classes. You can get an idea of what a virtual visit looks like by viewing my videos in which I talk about my books, my workshops for adults and schools, plus my various services for writers.

Ideally, in preparation for a virtual author visit, students should have read at least one of my books prior to the visit, but can also familiarize themselves with my work by undertaking the Super Scavenger Search. Teachers may also wish to download the word search puzzles related to each novel. Study guides are also available for all my novels and each book can provide teachers with a wide variety of ways to explore projects with their students and class sets of books are available.

To host a virtual author visit, it is necessary to download Skype, which is available for both Windows and Macintosh, and have a webcam. Mac users may also be able to set up a virtual author visit using iChat. Schools also need a projection screen and speakers in the library or gym or wherever the virtual visit takes place. For individual classes, it is possible to connect via laptop computers. You may contact me directly at [email protected] for details on technical requirements and all about exactly how a virtual author visit works. A technical run through a few days prior is also advisable, to ensure that everything runs smoothly on the day of the visit.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Author visits can be a lucrative source of book sales, but it’s wise to ask if such activity is even allowed at the school ahead of time. Most schools are delighted that you will be bringing books to sell and sign for the children while you are there. If you send order forms or other paperwork prior to your arrival, teachers often collect the money for you and everything can be extremely well organized. However, some schools do have very strict policies about selling anything to the students and prohibit promotion for commercial purposes. Make sure you always ask in advance to avoid any uncomfortable situations when you are at the school.

Once a visit is confirmed, I send out order forms for the books, which most schools send home with the students just prior to my arrival. A list of all books for purchase can be found here. Consequently, parents can see what sort of books are available, even visit my website, so that those children interested in getting signed copies remember to bring the correct payment while I am at the school and so avoid disappointment. However, I make it very clear that this is entirely at the discretion of the school. I do not expect to have a firm number of orders for books before I travel and always take a good supply of each title with me. I also ensure that I always ask if the school would like to purchase copies of my books for their library or if teachers are interested in class sets, usually at a discount.

At the time of writing, I have six children’s titles in print, but there are still no guarantees in terms of book sales during school visits. Sometimes your sales may be in the hundreds and on other occasions you may only sell ten copies or less. As a result, book sales during author visits should often be considered a nice bonus, rather than expected to be highly successful every time.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Once you have been invited to visit a school, the organizers may only be looking for an author to read their books to the students, but mostly teachers expect something more. If you are planning to conduct school visits on a long-term basis, you should have a well thought out set of presentations, workshops and other material. You also need to not only discuss the subject matter of your own books. Teachers are always interested in their students learning about editing and revision, for example.

Where writers get their inspiration is also always a popular topic, as are character development and just how a book comes together, and whenever possible you should leave time for questions from the children. Sometimes, teachers have specific areas that they would like you to cover, often related to classroom programs, so you may need to adapt your presentations to suit their needs.

In addition to the subject matter of my own books, I cover such topics as where ideas come from, story structure, editing and revision, character development, time travel stories, the superhero genre, history and research and more. I will present to up to 100 students at a time, although the smaller the audience the more participation from children, as a rule and I also consider workshops with smaller groups or individual classes. A list of some of the presentations I offer can be found here, but I am always happy to discuss matters with teachers to design sessions to best serve the needs of their students.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

In addition to school vists in your own city or geographic area, it is also possible to arrange tours to schools in other parts of the country. This can involve a working week in an area, with either full days at five different schools, ten half-day visits or a combination of this.

Such tours can be a challenge to organize, considering the bookings themselves and all the arrangements which will vary from school to school, plus travel, accommodation, meals and so on. However, in the best case scenario, one teacher may make all the arrangements for you, contacting his or her colleagues at other nearby schools, setting up an itinerary, arranging for transportation between venues and even organizing accommodation in someone’s home. At the other end of the scale, you have to set up everything yourself and if hotels and car rental are involved, in addition to air fare, it will be your decision to determine if the trip will be financially viable.

Although the experience is usually exhausting, it can be very worthwhile, with high volumes of book sales at the schools, an increase in your visibility with the children and parents, and very often the local media will take an interest, further raising your profile as an author.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

I always carry business cards since you never know who you might meet on your travels. Even when running errands at the bank or grocery store, at a sporting event with your children, or even at the beach in summer, you may meet someone who is influential on the parent teacher association at their school and may get you the attention of the teacher or librarian.

Word of mouth advertising is always said to be the best, but there are, of course, many ways to promote and market yourself to the school community. It can be tough sometimes to know who to send your material to, since the librarian has sometimes been eliminated at a school and perhaps a teacher is looking after the library, in addition to their other roles at the school. In other schools, you may find a librarian who only works for three days, then is at a different location for the rest of the week.

However, all schools have a principal and that is often the best initial point of contact, although, there is still no guarantee that your material will reach the decision maker.

I do have a flyer outlining all my services, such as editing, manuscript evaluation, online workshops for adults and children, parties and summer camps, corporate writing and so on, as well as school visits, which I have mailed to all the schools in my area and always have on hand at my events.

There is no sure thing in marketing and advertising and you really have to try out a lot of different methods, to determine what works best for you.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

If you plan on doing school and library vists, you do, of course, have to let people know that. A website is a must these days and without one, you might as well not exist professionally. The section of your website by which you intend to to secure school visits needs to be enticing and filled with details if you are hoping to get teachers and librarians interested enough to contact you. Details of my school visits are HERE and I also have pages including comments on my appeances at schools from children and teachers, as mentioned last week.

My website has a LIST of all the schools I have ever visted, as well as some libraries, festivals and young writer’s conferences, since many of these also have websites, where a visit that took place several years ago will be archived, which all increases your visibility on the web.

I have information on the books on my website, including the background and influences behind the stories. This can be a good selling point when you are trying get the teachers interested in a visit. The Emerald Curse, for example, is all about the comic book genre and teachers are often very fond of this topic, considered a good way to reach reluctant boy readers. I also have pages devoted to the historical background of The Sorcerer’s Letterbox and The Heretic’s Tomb, since the medieval period is also often of interest to teachers. The Doomsday Mask background page deals with the end of the Second World War, the city of Atlantis, ancient mysteries, crystal skulls and so on. The more interesting you can make your material, the better your chances of attracting someone’s attention. My website has study guides to all my books, as well as puzzles about each novel and an online scavenger search.

I do post articles about my school vists on my own blog periodically to draw people to my website and also regularly post on Facebook, Twitter and other places online about my school and library programs. I also have flyers about all my services, as well as business cards, on my table at any book signing events I do in the run up to Christmas. You never know who might be listening.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Magic has been a part of mankind’s folklore, traditions, myths, legends and literature, both for children and adults, for centuries. In stories for children, the adventure may be set wholly or partly in a fantasy universe, but readers prefer to identify with the people in the story as much as possible. Even in a world populated by magical beings and fantastic creatures, the main characters can be very ordinary individuals, with friends, families, intriguing personalities, troublesome pets or siblings, mannerisms and the rest, but still have incredible experiences.

The situations confronting the story’s leading players can also be universal, no matter where they take place, and often reflect the young reader’s own experiences, even if those individuals in the story are endowed with fabulous magical powers.

Magic has been with us for a very long time and will doubtless always be popular, so for children the magical novel will no doubt be with us for many years to come.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Sometimes a being bestowing power on the hero of the story may be anything but benevolent, when a verse carved on an ancient tablet can be recited to summon a demon, which will then grant a mortal some kind of magical powers. In this type of story however, the acquisition of powers usually carries a dreadful price, such as the possession of one’s soul, the death of a loved one or something equally drastic, which the demon will return and claim as his fee.

More often, magic is an innate talent that requires training. In the Harry Potter series, Harry’s schooling forms the central part of the series, although wizard education also features in Le Guin’s Earthsea novels. At the onset of the series, Harry Potter casts spells both accidentally and badly before he learns how to perform magic properly, honing his talents at Hogwarts.

Sometimes wizards have their talent from birth, but do not realize it until they hit their teens, with or without special schooling. Even an accident or other event can trigger the powers, although the person needs to be taught how to use their powers correctly by an older mentor, who may have been quietly observing them for years, wondering when their ability would first manifest itself.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Magical objects abound in fantasy stories and take a wide variety of forms. They are usually endowed with fabulous powers which can affect memory, cast illusions, disguise people or objects by transforming them into something else, stop or turn back time and so on.

The origin of the object is often shrouded in mystery and, if the creator is actually known, he or she is rarely mentioned. It is also naturally important that the creator of the artifact is not the only person able to use the object, otherwise it would be a largely pointless addition to the story.

Sometimes the object is extremely powerful and highly dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. Perhaps it is the only object capable of defeating the hero or rendering him defenseless. It may be the means by which the chief villain will be able to conquer the entire world, thus triggering a quest to either obtain the object or destroy it as happens with the ring of power in Lord of the Rings, but has also been a very common theme in many stories since then and continues to be used heavily in fantasy tales in one form or another.

In my fifth novel, The Heretic’s Tomb, Lady Isabella Devereaux comes into the possession of a mysterious amulet that has the power to restore life to the recently deceased. Living at the time of the Black Death in 1349, the noble and virtuous Lady Isabella intends to use the mysterious artifact to cure the relentless disease. However, the villain of the piece, Sir Roger de Walsingham, is also determined to secure the amulet for himself, in order to raise an army of the dead in order to seize the kingdom and make himself King of England.

Tolkien’s tale also features other magical objects such the sword wielded by Frodo which can detect the oncoming presence of orcs, while fans of Harry Potter are familiar with Harry’s invisibility cloak and his marauder’s map, by which he can observe the movements of others in the corridors of Hogwarts.

Wands are wielded by all the leading characters in the Harry Potter series and Gandalf in Lord of the Rings has his trusty staff. Other fantasy tales are imbued with objects of a similar nature. Although the lead character in a fantasy tale may be endowed with magical abilities or have the power to cast spells and enchantments, the fact that a wand, staff or other means is used to help cast the spell also helps the story be more believable. The use of an object to help them, an aid to magic if you like, makes opposition to the magical character, whether good or bad, much more feasible. If the staff or wand is lost or damaged, the wizard is either helpless or at least less powerful, making the story more interesting by adding conflict.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Another common theme in stories involving magic features an overwhelmingly powerful spell, which may cause untold damage or destruction if it is miscast. It may be the sole means of salvation for the heroes, but will destroy the entire world if it is used improperly.

We also occasionally learn how magic may incur sacrifices, which could be something simple, such as an adversary’s prized possession or perhaps a sample of hair. Or it could be something far more difficult to obtain, such as a sample of someone’s blood, the claw of a ferocious beast or the tooth of a dragon. The most dramatic examples involve the taking of a life, which also shows up as a recurring theme in magical stories.

Despite the incredible powers wielded by wizards, the ability to conquer death is rarely present. The inevitability of death is crucial to make the story more exciting. If the hero can be killed, only to be resurrected at the slightest opportunity like the characters in a video game, the story loses all credibility. The hero has to be in significant danger of destruction or the reader will not be sufficiently interested to turn the page in order to learn what may happen to their hero in the next chapter.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Magical stories can feature beings that are able to access the mind of their adversary to determine their deepest fears to learn what really scares them and thus immobilize them at a crucial moment. This may not necessarily immobilize physically, but mentally render someone incapable of any resistance. Sometimes this is only for a limited time, giving the hero precious time to escape and replenish his energy or allowing the villain the chance to slip away to fight another day.

Another common weakness exists in magical powers that are ineffective against a particular thing or in a particular situation. This can be something simple or commonplace, such as water, fire, certain colours and so on.

Another device commonly used in stories is magical books, from which the hero or villain derive their powers. In this case, the power actually come from the spells in the book rather than from within the person’s body, so power can be restricted, if only temporarily, by denying the person access to the books. Of course they may have studied hard to memorize the enchantments, but a story of this type is usually a classic quest tale where the plot revolves around the plan to steal the book or destroy it to finally vanquish the villain.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

In my own books, I have relied upon magic to effect the time travel sequences, rather than using a mechanical device, and children have found this much more engaging than reading about a machine which has intricate controls, switches and dials. In my school workshops, where students invent their own time machines and methods, very often highly sophisticated devices are created. But readers still prefer to read about something that makes them suspend their disbelief. In The Alchemist’s Portrait, Matthew visits the city museum on a field trip with his school and meets a boy his own age, trapped inside his own portrait for over three hundred years. Matthew can step into the painting from the outside and, once within the picture, he can view images from all the different time periods where the painting was displayed on walls in the past. And just as he can step into the portrait from the outside, when he is inside the picture, Matthew can step through and travel back in time, choosing the era in which he wishes to emerge based on the image shown in the frame.

In The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, magic again plays a major role in the story when Jack travels to 1483 on a desperate mission to save the Princes in the Tower of London from the clutches of King Richard III. By the use of magic, Jack is able to correspond through time by means of a scroll placed in the drawer of a wooden box dating back to the Middle Ages. When he makes his initial journey into the past, a mysterious wheel in the box has to be turned anticlockwise in order for him to travel to 1483. This is a mechanical device, to be sure, but the trip back in time is still facilitated by magic, rather than by scientific means.

In The Emerald Curse, Sam discovers that his grandfather, the world’s foremost comic book artist and writer, is trapped in a bizarre comic book universe derived from his own imagination. This time there is a magic object involved - the magical pen with an enigmatic green gemstone embedded in the barrel, which Charles Kelly used to create all his famous artwork and stories over the years. Using this same pen, Sam is able to communicate with his grandfather and by drawing himself within the panels of the story, travels into the comic book world in order to rescue his grandfather.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Magical realms have had a place in folklore and legends in cultures around the globe for thousands of years and play a major role in fantasy literature. Sometimes, these are the author’s own wonderfully detailed imagined worlds, complete with a form of government, architecture, currency, natural features, history, myths and legends, flora, fauna and traditions.

Middle Earth and Narnia are two of the best known examples, but there are countless others. And even within these enchanted realms there are other special places, too - areas where magical forces or auras are strongest or where special rituals have to be performed for spells or curses to work properly. Parts of the kingdom where only fairies can go, rivers only certain people can cross, the lake where Arthur first receives Excalibur, enchanted woods, mystical mountains, forbidden forests, caves where monsters or demons dwell and so many more. These fantastic universes are nothing like the real world in which we live, yet still have to be realistic.

An author’s own invented fantasy universe in which magic is commonplace can be inspired by non-fictional beliefs and deeply rooted in the history of mankind’s many cultures. However, even if based on real practices, the effect, strength and rules of the magic are usually what the writer requires for the plot of his or her story. And yet, magic should never be used when it is merely convenient for the writer, to simply solve a tricky problem in the plot or to save the hero’s life. Otherwise, the use of it will lose all credibility.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Some stories featuring magic feature a mystical power, which is present in everything in the world, all around us, or is sometimes found in objects such as magical symbols, a mysterious ring, a precious stone or charm that a character can access.

Wizards, witches and sorcerers often have the power to manipulate one or more of the natural elements, control mystical energy within the human body and many stories strongly feature the mysterious power of the subconscious mind.

While many of these traditions, practices and beliefs may be briefly touched upon in a children’s story, they are not usually as fully developed as they would be in a story for adults or even one for teenagers. However, although as a rule the older the child, the more sophisticated the concepts can be, this does not necessarily mean that the narrative has to be overly simplified for younger readers. While many of the complexities of the magical world frequently feature in books for children, they are less prevalent in novels for younger readers than in those for middle grades and those aimed at teenagers. However, the story still has to be believable. It may feature outrageous monsters or people with fabulous powers, but still has to be rooted in the real world or the reader will quickly lose interest.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

A belief in the ability to influence supernatural powers by prayer, sacrifice or invocation dates back to prehistoric religions and may have originated from the need to explain aspects of the weather such as the wind, rain or thunderstorms.

Magic in one form or another appears in ancient cultures around world in Egypt, Greece, India, the Middle East and elsewhere. Early texts of ceremonial magic include the use of mysterious symbols, the speaking of magic words to command spirits, the use of wands and other ritual tools, and the benign or destructive influence of spirits. A magic circle is often utilized as the means by which the magician defends himself against the spirits he is summoning and sometimes a child has to be brought into the circle to act as a conduit with those spirits.

The world of magic is a breathtakingly complex one and in literature can be incredibly detailed. Tolkien’s masterful depiction of the magical realm of Middle Earth and all the creatures and beings that inhabit it in Lord of the Rings is a prime example of this.

From all parts of the globe, the magic appears in traditions, legends, myths, folklore and literature and takes many forms, from areas more correctly defined as the occult to things we are more familiar with. Common themes in stories involving magic include natural forces that not detectable by science or the interconnection of the cosmos through which all things are bound together.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

Some characters are common to many magical stories – the evil witch or wizard, the aged wise counselor, the reluctant hero, the noble ruler, the evil advisor. Young readers certainly always need to be able to identify with the chief protagonist, but the story’s other major characters must also be believable, even if they are not strictly human.

Characters with recognizable traits, quirks and mannerisms who seem to almost leap off the page are always going to be popular with readers and are rarely forgotten. Magical creatures, eccentric personalities and other worldly realms are an integral part of fairy tales and to some degree the success of the Shrek movie franchise, with children and perhaps even more so with adults, owes a lot to the presence of so many familiar characters, albeit used in somewhat unconventional ways for comic impact.

Children are both familiar and comfortable with stories incorporating magic and although some may have gone a little stale in today’s technology dominated world, the recent success of the Harry Potter phenomena, along with the movie adaptations of Lord of the Rings and other fantasy classics has shown that children still have a craving for traditional stories of adventure in which magic plays a major role. Even Star Wars, reintroduced to a whole new generation of followers through the more recent movies and their accompanying books, games and other paraphernalia, can be said to have some of these features, with the Force being a form of magic perhaps.

A weekly column from children’s author Simon Rose

The next series of articles in this column will explore the use of magic in stories for children, ranging from early chapter books, through middle grade to young adult.

Magic plays a big part in children’s lives as they grow up. Santa Claus is a very familiar figure to millions of children, along with all the magical things associated with the secular side of Christmas each year. This is something many children are sure is real, for a while at least, as is the tooth fairy, an ever present character in the lives of kids when they are younger.

Many children may even be afraid of the dark and fearful of the supposed creatures that may lurk there, including ghosts. They may be reassured repeatedly that ghosts doesn’t exist, but are never entirely convinced and in a strange way, it is indeed much more terrifying to be scared of something you know isn’t real. After all if it can’t be defeated, how can you ever win?

Magic of course appears in so many of the stories that children avidly consume as they grow up. Indeed, the process of reading is itself a kind of magical experience, as children begin their own personal journey of discovery. As I often point out to children during my school visits and workshops, books can be time machines, space ships that whisk you off to another planet or become doorways to other dimensions, all powered by your own limitless imagination.