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Literature Matters - Literature - Arts

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 Magic Pencil, a British Council touring exhibition exploring the wonderful world of children’s book illustration has been seen in many countries around the globe. Here, Gail Ellis of the British Council in Paris discusses how the exhibition has been used as a lively and engaging tool in the teaching of English.    

Four of our most brilliant writers for teenagers, Malorie Blackman, Kevin Brooks, Melvin Burgess and Matt Whyman talk about what they have been reading recently.    

Novelist David Lee Stone and storyteller Elly Stuart are two professionals who have worked overseas on British Council projects. David Lee Stone explores the enthusiasm he found amongst Bulgarian teenagers while Elly Stuart writes about India, and    

A list of books referred to in this edition    

Our regular fiction round-up this time focuses on writing for children. Jan Mark highlights some new fiction for children, focusing on some of the books that may have been over-looked.

Jan Mark

Upwards of 11,000 children’s books are published annually in the UK, most of them home-grown since the British are notoriously resistant to translations, but the casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that there are no more than a couple of dozen writers at work. (Nine of the ten children’s best-sellers in last week’s listings were by the same author.) The casual observer, after all, sees only what publishers promote and booksellers display. Whether or not these are any good – and many are very good – they are there because they are expected to sell. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They sell because they are being sold. The ones that do not sell were not expected to sell which is why they lurk coyly on shelves, spine facing out, instead of filling windows.

• Mass-marketing is justified by the claim that certain writers are ‘creating a whole new generation of readers’, a defence first advanced in respect of Enid Blyton’s ubiquity. No one stops to define readers. Certainly everyone ought to be able to read but most people are not going to become voracious bookworms who need regular fixes of print and who so enjoy the experience of reading that they actively seek novelty and challenge rather that safety and swift satisfaction. For that minority casual observance will never be enough especially if we, the adults, are the observers. I sometimes feel like hanging out a sign: I read books so you don’t have to, but nothing, even now, compares to the excitement of discovering that gramme of radium in tonnes of pitchblende, the same excitement I felt as a child on finding a book that was surely meant for me, not 50,000 others. Recently a number of impressive new writers has emerged who are accessible and entertaining but who write with gravitas. Interestingly they have all come relatively late to full-length fiction for children and young adults, but look set for fast good innings.

The Various   Celandine   The Cup of the World   The Widow and the King

Steve Augarde’s, to be followed later this year by , the second book of his trilogy, is nominally about the discovery of fairies surviving in the 21st century, but is also a look at societies in decline, defining themselves by supposed superiority to their neighbours, favouring hostility and isolationism above co-operation and confederation; ring any bells? It is a witty and absorbing read but it does what serious children’s fiction has always done, raising more questions than it answers, challenging an intelligent response in intelligent readers as well as entertaining them. Likewise, John Dickinson’s and ; for an older readership but not much older, these are set in a fictional but not fantastical medieval society degenerating into internecine strife. There is a supernatural element without which the narrative would not function but the themes are human – autonomy, self-delusion, the nature of leadership, ideas waiting to engage with those who recognize them.

Still in the Middle Ages, Eric Pringle’s series of Big George books combine history with science fiction to tell the story of England’s first extra-terrestrial visitor who arrives in the 12th century and, since his home planet has very long circadian cycles, immediately goes to sleep for 900 years, to be awakened occasionally, just when he is most needed. Funny, earthy and tinged with melancholy – for George never wakes twice to the same friends – Pringle’s stories rework the legend of the hero sleeping under the hill. For my money he can wake George as often as he likes.

Keeper   Tamar

Mal Peet’s first novel,, is based upon Arthurian legends without ever mentioning them. This is the story of a South American footballer who has brought home the World Cup. While he is being interviewed by a sports writer the Cup sits on the desk between them like the Holy Grail. It is a revelatory moment when the reader cottons on to the fact that it actually is the Holy Grail; a whole new dimension is revealed, but Peet respects his readers. It is still a riveting story even if you don’t cotton on. His forthcoming novel, , is entirely different, involving the experiences of Special Operations agents in the Netherlands at the end of World War II, and their repercussions 50 years later. Compelling is a word that barely exists outside book reviews and blurbs but this story becomes a page-turner, not through relentless action but in its exploration of human compulsions.

The City of Ember   The People of Sparks   Boy Meets Boy

Science Fiction – as opposed to fantasy – for children is rare. For a start Science Fiction needs to look as if it might logically work; it has no place for spells and broomsticks. Jeanne DuPrau’s , rather overlooked when first published in the UK, is a fine piece of storytelling, and the sequel, , is due out here in January 2006 so there is time to catch up on the first one. If children now know anything about fall-out shelters they must seem as quaintly historical as Martello Towers; this is a book about an entire city built underground, where good could live until it was safe to emerge. Now it is time to go, resources are exhausted, but the instructions for leaving have been lost and in any case the inhabitants no longer know why they are there. Surfacing, the survivors are to discover the truth of the dictum that those who know no history are doomed to repeat it. Fellow-American, David Levithan has just made his debut with, a story of first love told with great charm and a terrific sense of fun. Being young and gay ought to be like this.

Those were just the most striking of the new wave. Books continue to appear from those long-servers who are still as fresh and inventive as they have always been – Kevin Crossley-Holland, Peter Dickinson, Sonya Hartnett, Geraldine McCaughrean, Susan Price…Even without the hype, these are good times for young readers.

Jan Mark is one of the most distinguished authors of books for young people. She has twice been awarded the Carnegie Medal and has also won the Penguin Guardian Award, the Observer Teenage Fiction Prize and the Angel Award for Fiction. Her many titles include and .

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