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.
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Wolfie is published by Strident. It is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
"A real cracker of a book"
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"What was your favourite book when you were growing up?"
It’s a question I’m sure every author has been asked a thousand times, but my son was the one asking me this time, so I thought I should give it some serious thought for once.
I have a terrible memory. I can forget the name of a TV program I watched the previous week, and despite my adoration of books, I find it hard to remember many that really ‘did it for me’ as a youngster. However, a little trawling of the grey stuff managed to dredge up some wonderful memories, and I thought I’d share them on ABBA.
The earliest book I can remember reading for pleasure (as opposed to the Red Pirate and Blue Pirate books I was sent home from school with) was Meg and Mog by Helen Nichol and Jan Peinkowski. I have no idea why this book stayed in my head the way it did, but I was delighted when a friend bought it for my daughter to read when she was a little dot. When I asked her if she remembered it too, she squeed with delight and rushed up into the attack to see if it was still somewhere in her growing-up box (it’s not, so I might have to buy her a new copy despite the fact she’s fifteen now).
The first book I can remember having read to me was The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr. I’m certain there must have been others, but this is the one that has most firmly lodged itself (although The Hungry Caterpillar was also waving frantically at me from somewhere deep in my pre-frontal cortex). When some family recently came to visit us from Scotland, I dug out this little gem to read to their children. Their reaction to it was a joy. It really is a timeless classic.
Darker things now. For some reason, the Moomins by Tove Jansson scared the crap out of me as a child. I’ve never revisited them to try and discover just what it was about the books that have left me so scarred, but I do remember being particularly unnerved by the Hattifatteners (even writing that down has brought back disturbed, and no doubt terribly suppressed, memories). Despite this fear, I have a feeling I read three of four books in the series, so my delight of being scared clearly outweighed my fear (something I’ve never forgotten as a writer).
Next on my list are two books that I read back-to-back when laid up sick in bed with the flu at the age of eleven (it was proper flu, not man flu). Call of the Wild by Jack London and The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien are two of my most loved books. Maybe it was the fever I was running at the time, but these two stories are branded into my higgledy-piggledy RAM, and are as much a part of me as any book I’ve read since. London’s Buck has now also become a favourite of my youngest child. What goes around comes around, huh?
Last on my list is the book I think I loved more than any other in the years before I found my way into the Horror, Sci-Fi and General Fiction sections of my local library. A book about a boy living in the North East of England during WW2. Chas McGill is up there in my top ten list of characters and is the hero of The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall. A wonderful, poignant book that still appeals to young and old today. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favour and do so.Of course, whenever you try to put a list like this together, it’s inevitable that many great books will be left out. But for me, the above list represents the books that made the most lasting impression on me until I reached those torrid teens and discovered a whole new world of literature.
Almost 20 years ago I remember watching ABC TV with my toddler daughter when a clip of four weird men in skivvies singing ‘Rock a Bye Your Bear” came on.
I remember thinking the song was clever, and Murphlet 2 enjoyed it too. Little did I know that those men, who were The Wiggles, would go on to become a huge international phenomenon – or that for years to come, long after my youngest grew out
This post is a tribute to Diana Wynne Jones, who died last month. I discovered her books nearly fifteen years ago, just at the moment when I had realised I wanted to write for children, and promptly fell in love. She is my favourite of favourites; one of only half a dozen writers whose books I can re-read and enjoy as much each time. She could do it all: elegant prose, big themes, clever plotting. But a clever plot is mere problem solving. Magic rests in characters. That is a gift of imagination and ear. To write characters who live off the page, a writer has to become her characters as she writes, and no amount of intellect will make up for a deficit of empathy. Diana Wynne Jones understood pain. All her main characters are flawed or damaged, and that's what makes them interesting.
I knew it would be no simple task to pick only three books by Wynne Jones to write about here, and so it proved.
I have to start with Charmed Life, the first book of hers I read and still, probably, the one I love most. Charmed Life illustrates a repeated theme in DWJ: a young person in search of their identity, coming to terms with their unique gifts. The young Cat Chant, orphaned, bewildered and stubbornly gullible, must come to terms with who and what he is. Why is Cat such an attractive character? Wynne Jones revisited him twice more: in the deliciously dark novella, Stealer of Souls, and the long awaited sequel to Charmed Life, The Pinhoe Egg. In neither of these does she quite pull off the magic Cat has over the reader in his first outing. And that, I think, is because in the later stories he knows what and who and what he is. Cat's magic in his first adventure is that he is running from himself as fast as he can, and we wait with bated breath for his destiny to catch him up.
My second choice has to be Howl's Moving Castle. Here it is another orphan, Sophie Hatter, who in classic fairy tale mode sets out to seek her fortune. Like Cat Chant, Sophie seems almost wilfully blind to her magic ability, her identity, until forced to accept her powers. And again, it is this avoidance of the obvious, this refusal of talent, which drives both plot and characterisation. But the real star of the book is the slippery, vain wizard Howl (that ultimate slitherer-outer) who is, like Sophie, hiding from himself. In the turn-upon-twist denouement, a real tour-de-force of plotting, both hero and heroine are forced to accept their gifts and use them honestly.
It was difficult to choose a third title. So many vie for next loved: Dogsbody, Fire and Hemlock, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Homeward Bounders, Deep Secret (and its sort-of sequel, The Merlin Conspiracy), Hexwood, Black Maria, The Ogre Downstairs and A Tale of Time City. I especially enjoy the fact that, although Wynne Jones revisits certain character types and themes, each book is different.
But in the end, I chose The Magicians of Caprona, partly because of one, perfectly realised scene. An enchantress known as the White Devil turns the two children, Tonino and Angelica, into a living Punch and Judy and they are forced to re-enact the puppet show, with all its violence, before an audience of adult
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When I was little, it was a poetry book with a shiny red cover (who know what it was called), and, once I could tackle a bigger book - Black Beauty. It was a long time ago!
The Story about Ping (Marjorie Flack) is one of the first books I can remember - I was always so anxious for Ping and I always thought it was so unfair to be spanked for being last - probably because I was always the last when it came to being in line! Was it a favourite? I suppose it was in a way.
Oh, poor Ping!
I'm so glad it's not just me with the memory. I'll remember exactly whether I liked a book or not - and why - and will generally remember the cover and often the ending but as for the title, I can barely remember it while I'm still reading so haven't got a chance a few years later. However, I do recall that I also absolutely loved books about the war, but only those centering on evacuees and their plight and/or excitement. Carrie's War was a particular favourite and, ah, there goes that memory again...
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My kids loved Meg Mog and Owl and their children love them now, too. we still have rather battered copies of three of the Meg books.
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