Two of Britain’s leading experts on writing for children explore some of the highs and the lows in the world of children’s literature. Award winning writer Anne Fine suggests that all is not so rosy and voices some concern over the quality of writing for children. Meanwhile critic Nicholas Tucker tracks the development of political correctness in children’s literature.
Writing a best-selling children’s book is even more complicated when you have to develop a new language to go with it. Julia Donaldson reveals how she invented Groilish – an idiosyncratic language featured in her new book The Giants and the Joneses.
The Giants and the Joneses
Wahoy, roddlers!
(In Groilish, that means, 'Hello, readers!')
Groilish is the language spoken by the giants in my new novel for 7–11 year-olds, The Giants and the Joneses. One of the characters is a girl giant called Jumbeelia who loves collecting things. When she decides to collect some human beings (or 'iggly plops') the three Jones children are in trouble.
When I started writing the book the giants were going to speak English, but I soon ran into a problem: since Jumbeelia is quite a kind soul, I reckoned that if the children asked her to take them home she would do so, and the adventure would end too soon. I needed a language barrier. That was how I hit upon Groilish.
I have always been fascinated by the sound of words and enjoy playing around with them, which is partly why many of my picture-book texts, such as The Snail and the Whale and The Gruffalo, are in rhyme.
I also love made-up words. When I was little, my grandmother used to read me Edward Lear’s poems about jumblies and runcible spoons. Later, I shared my own children’s delight in the language of Roald Dahl’s The BFG. We giggled over the disgusting-tasting snozzcumbers and marveled at ears which could hear 'cattlepiddlers argying about who is going to turn into the prettiest butteryfly'.
So it was great to have an excuse to create my own foreign language. I wanted Groilish to have some funny-sounding words in it but it was important too that they sounded something like English words so that they wouldn’t be too hard to understand. Here are some examples:
Funny: heehuckerly (sounds a bit like ha ha)
Beanstalk: bimplestonk (has the same b and st sounds as the English word)
Splash: glishglursh (sounds splash-y, I think)
In case anyone gets stuck, there’s a dictionary at the back. I’m hoping that the language will catch on and that children will be inspired to make up their own Groilish words. But I do hasten to add that most of the book is in English!
I am very excited that Warner Brothers have already bought the film rights to The Giants and the Joneses. Although I didn’t write it with the cinema in mind, I can see now that many of the scenes (for instance, when Stephen Jones is forced to fight a giant wasp) lend themselves to the big screen. And the producer – David Heyman, who also produced the Harry Potter films – has assured me that the giants in the film will speak authentic Groilish.
But please don’t wait for the film to come out: Roddle o booch! (Read the book.)
Julia Donaldson lives in Glasgow and is the author of numerous books for children, including the much-loved Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child. She has also written children’s plays and songs, and runs regular storytelling workshops.
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