The Battle of Cable Street

I'm currently struggling with a (very) literary bestseller for adults, one so densely written - in language I've never heard anybody outside a novel use - that I'm having to set myself a fixed number of pages per day to get through it. (It's for my book club and I do always read the books we choose.) The topics it deals with are definitely contemporary - motherhood, marriage, school shootings - and definitely worth talking about. But it's the language that's defeating me, and making me almost resent the subjects it's considering.

Then I come to Tanya Landman's The Battle of Cable Street, which manages to tell a politically-engaged story about a real event in the past that has stacks of relevance for today, to tell it from the viewpoint of a child and, at the same time, to make it so readable. It's short: 109 pages. The language is crisp, vivid and accessible to all ages. I went through it in one sitting.

It starts as a sketch of life in the East End of London in the 1930s, with kids messing about and playing games. But then, when Sir Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirt followers in the BUF (British Union of Fascists) begin to make themselves heard, it gathers momentum, building in fear and tension until the battle of the title explodes in the streets, with anti-fascists taking on both the BUF and (a detail I hadn’t been aware of before) mounted police sent by the Home Office to protect the BUF!

It's a fierce and timely reminder that some struggles are never over. Or, as the narrator of the book puts it: ‘Once you defeat an evil like fascism, that should be the end of it. It took me years to realize that it’s like housework. No matter how often you clean up, the dirt just keeps on coming back.’

If anybody were to ask me why children's books should be taken as seriously as literature for adults, I'd offer The Battle of Cable Street as Exhibit A.

From my Reading Pile by Claire Fayers

 Phew, this month has been hectic. Writing deadlines, school events, extra freelance admin work. I've barely had time to read and my book pile has been growing ever higher. But Easter is coming and I'm hoping to have some time to stop and read. Today, I thought I'd share a few of the books on my stack and their opening sentences.

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

At half past six on the twenty-first of June 1922, when Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov was escorted through the gates of the Kremlin onto Red Square, it was glorious and cool.

The Girl Who Broke the Sea, A. Connors

They say you'll never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Where the River Takes Us, Lesley Parr

It's surprising how many people in a small town will believe there's a wild cat on the loose.

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley, Sean Lusk

Leadenhall stinks this morning; of soot and shit and, inexplicably, of nutmeg.

Which one of these would you read based on those opening sentences? Do you have any other recommendations?

The stones at Stanton Drew - by Sue Purkiss

I've been meaning for some time to visit Stanton Drew, where I'd heard there are stone circles. I'm interested in prehistory, and fascinated by all the discoveries that keep being made about early man - and I find these mysterious stones which are scattered across our landscape intriguing, and somehow meaningful in a way I can't quite grasp.

Stanton Drew is only half an hour's drive from where I live in Somerset. I'm on one side of the Mendips, and Stanton Drew is on the other side, in the Chew Valley - which is very beautiful, so it was a treat of a drive over there. 

Stanton Drew itself is an exceptionally pretty village, built of stone, clustered round its church, reached by a very narrow lane - which is perhaps why it's escaped lots of new building. I missed the circles at first and had to turn round and come back over a tiny bridge; if you visit (for the information of Scattered Authors: it's very close to Folly Farm), just head for the church and then follow the signs till you can't go any further. You'll find a small parking area among some houses; look behind you, and you'll see the path into the field where the stones are. The site is managed by English Heritage, but it's not remotely like their more famous site, Stonehenge, which, as you'll know, is a massive, very busy tourist attraction with a state-of-the-art tourist centre.

Stanton Drew isn't like that at all. There are a couple of information boards at the entrance, which is through an old, slightly battered-looking kissing gate. You look ahead: and there is a large meadow dotted with stones. It slopes slightly down towards the River Chew, and to the left, on the other side of the river, the ground rises up again, as you can see in the second picture. To the left, more fields, and the skeleton outline of a few trees. It was one of those days that alternates between bright sunshine and sudden downpours, with a sky full of dramatic clouds tinged with purple and grey.

There are three circles, estimated to have been constructed in about 2500BC - so within roughly the same period as Stonehenge. The largest one, according to English Heritage, is, at 113 metres across, one of the biggest in the British Isles. Some of its stones are missing, but many remain: some standing, some fallen. They are made of a stone called Dolomitic Conglomerate, which probably comes from just a few miles away, in the Mendips. It's a gnarled, heavily textured stone, colonised by lichens, with hollows filled by rainwater which gleams in the sunshine. 

Perhaps surprisingly, none of the circles have been excavated, but geophysics surveys show that in the large one there were once concentric circles of wooden posts, together with a ditch running round the outside. These circles took a lot of building: what drove the small communities that lived here to invest so much time and effort in creating them? Something to do with religion, surely: an attempt to make sense of life and death.

But legend has a different explanation. The story has it that long ago, on a Saturday night in summer, there was a wedding party in this meadow. Drink was, of course, taken: a fiddler played and the dancing grew wilder and wilder. However, at midnight the fiddler wiped his brow and said apologetically that that was it: it was Sunday now, and he must stop playing. The newly-marrieds and the guests cried shame, but the fiddler would not be swayed: he packed up his fiddle and off he went.

But all, it seemed, was not lost. For there, in the centre of the circle, another fiddler had suddenly appeared: a handsome stranger. With a grin, he declared that he would be more than happy to keep the festivities going, Sunday or no Sunday.

He played well. In fact he played so well that the music was irresistible. The dancing grew wilder and more frenzied; the dancers couldn't stop, until eventually, utterly exhausted, they fell to the ground, exhausted - and were turned to stone.

Then the stranger, still smiling, shed his handsome appearance - and revealed himself to be, in fact, the Devil.

Well, there was no sign of the Devil yesterday. Though the weather was wild, the scene was utterly peaceful. Quite magical, in fact. 

As I walked across to one of the smaller circles, I noticed a splash of crimson on one of the overturned stones. It was a single red rose. 

And when I reached the centre of the smaller circle - which appears to be more complete than the larger one - I saw little patches of white scattered among the grass. I thought at first they were some kind of flower, but as I looked more closely, I saw that they were rose petals: some red, but mostly white. Someone had been here before me. Someone who felt a special connection to this place. 

It's a feeling I can understand.

Incidentally, some of you may know that I am a huge fan of Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series of novels. For fellow fans - Stanton Drew features in the 11th novel of the series, 'The Stone Circle'. Elly mentions another legend: that it's impossible to count the number of stones - or that if you do succeed, you drop down dead. Just to be on the safe side, I decided not to try.

 

Manifesto, by Saviour Pirotta

Hi guys, it's been a scramble trying to think what I can post about this month. My father's passing last November threw my writing schedule well out of kilter and I'm still struggling to meet deadlines four months later.  So here's a little manifesto I wrote for myself at my father's bedside. It's a bit twee in places but as Norma Desmond said in Sunset Boulevard, "I wrote it with my heart'.

Call The Puffins! written by Cath Howe, illustrated by Ella Okstad, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

Muffin the puffin is nervous about her first day on the island of Egg where she will be tested to see if she's fast and clever enough to train for the famous search and rescue team. She's nervous because she's worried that her turned up feet ends will stop her from being as good at it all as she wants to be.

She needn't have worried. Even though she does one part of the test more slowly than others, it was for a good reason. She'd stopped to check on a mystery egg to see if all was well with it. That actually proves her to have just the right instincts for the job.

And the job soon begins when a baby puffin is lost in a storm ... and it is Muffin and her very tall friend Tiny, who make the rescue, working together.

A charming story for those ready for their first chapter books. Nine short and active chapters, all enlivened by Ella Okstad's lovely illustrations. A story to develop empathy (Muffin and Tiny both worry about being different), an exciting and satisfying adventure, and the promise of more stories to come. Just right.   

Using or not using words - by Anne Booth

 I think all of us know the feeling when words just aren't enough. As writers, words are essential for us, but we know that they will never exactly capture what we want to say. All we can do is our best. I think that is why I love writing picture book texts so much, as the illustrations can often add a whole new dimension to a story. 

Recently I have felt too full of words - overwhelmed by all the work I have to do, and beset by anxiety and self-criticism . However, I have recently been going to painting and life drawing classes at my local adult education centre and I can heartily recommend this for any writer 'worded out.' It was a great break from editing. I found it incredibly relaxing NOT using words, but looking very carefully at the models and trying to describe them using lines, or negative space, or tonal values. I am off to Norfolk this coming weekend for a course on painting from imagination with the lovely artist Nicola Slattery. I am really looking forward to it, as I have been on her weekends before and Nicola is one of the kindest, calmest kindest and most encouraging teachers you could meet, as well as a wonderful artist.  I am hoping that maybe I can paint from imagination and combine this with my own words one day. I would so love to both write AND illustrate my own picture books, although I know I am so lucky to have been teamed with the most brilliant illustrators and would never want to change that. Seeing what an artist does with my words is one of the most amazing experiences!

I can really recommend Nicola's courses. I absolutely loved her printing course too.  This weekend my husband and I are going to stay in a shepherd's hut on a farm near Nicola's studio, and my husband , who works as a  technician in a secondary school, is bringing books he is looking forward to reading all day, whilst I plan to spend two happy days using paints instead of words.

https://www.nicolaslattery.com/art-courses/

Daughters of Time Revisited by Joan Lennon

March is Women's History Month. 2014 doesn't exactly count as history, but with the publishing industry's obsession with the new and the debut, let's be contrary and revisit this rather gorgeous anthology from the History Girls that came out that year. Published by Templar and edited by Mary Hoffman, it includes stories for 9-12 year olds about exceptional women through history. Here's the line-up:

Queen Boudica: Tasca's Secret by Katherine Roberts

Aethelflaed: The Queen of the Mercians by Sue Purkiss

Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Queen's Treasure by Adele Geras

Julian of Norwich: All Shall Be Well by Katherine Langrish

Lady Jane Grey: Learn to Die by Mary Hoffman

Elizabeth Stuart: The Phoenix Bride by Dianne Hofmeyr

Aphra Behn: A Night at the Theatre by Marie-Louise Jensen

Mary Wollstonecraft: An Unimportant Woman by Penny Dolan

Mary Anning: Best After Storms by Joan Lennon

Mary Seacole: The Lad That Stands Before You by Catherine Johnson

Emily Davison: Return to Victoria by Celia Rees

Amy Johnson: The Colours of the Day by Anne Rooney

The Greenham Common Women: Please Can I Have a Life? by Leslie Wilson

And what does it say on the back cover blurb? I'm glad you asked ...

Be surprised, as you look afresh at the stories of some of history's most remarkable women, as imagined by the finest female authors of historical fiction for children.

Be enthralled, as you encounter both famous figures and lesser-known heroines from across the ages, from warrior queens to anti-nuclear activists.

But most of all... be inspired.

Available as an actual book from Waterstones, and also on Kindle.

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

Face your fears - by Lu Hersey

 When I watch other writers speaking confidently in front of audiences, I feel a mix of total admiration and massive envy. How do they do it? What magical skill helps them not stutter and freeze in front of the crowd and how come they NEVER balls up their presentations? Why is it my powerpoints can randomly jump to some picture of my cat watching TV, or make the school internet crash completely?

Yes, I've done a few events where everything's worked properly, and I've even remembered to breathe. But the truth is I suffer from glossophobia - a fear of public speaking. It's paralysing. The moment everyone's attention is turned on me, I feel sick, my mouth goes dry, and my mind is a completely blank space. Not zen empty, just blank. 

I'm also more than capable of sabotaging myself. I realised this many, many years ago, at a writing diploma award ceremony. Everyone had to read out a piece of their work in front of the collected students, friends and families. I was going to read the spooky start of a ghost story I'd written, which I'd practised reading aloud in front of a mirror, over and over again. But as I started reading aloud on the stage, I realised the printout I was holding was a totally different piece from the one I'd practised. HOW DID IT EVEN GET THERE? 

Turning a whiter shade of pale, I fumbled with the paper like Boris when he ended up talking about Pepper Pig. I had no choice but to keep going with what I had in front of me - a piece from the autobiography module about trying to hide a plantation of cannabis plants from my parents, and stopping a very unpredictable housemate from dropping acid in their tea while they were visiting. Totally unsuitable for the occasion.  I'd meant to make my audience's spines tingle, but instead everyone laughed. (Fortunately it was meant to be funny.) It took me DAYS to recover. Even now, I cringe when I think about it.

The problem is, as a writer, you HAVE to be able to talk to audiences. It's how you promote your work. We're expected to entertain people in real life, not just in books. 

The basic advice given to us glossophobia sufferers is embrace the fear and do it anyway - but that, as I know all too well, is easier said than done. Very gradually, with a lot of practice, I've got slightly more used to it. These days I manage to talk to a hall full of people without needing a week lying down in a darkened room afterwards to recover - but it's taken me a good while to get here.  

If you're a fellow glossophobia sufferer, here are some ideas that might (or might not) help you get through:

1. A popular method is to imagine everyone in your audience is stark bollock naked. To be honest, this doesn't really work for me. The audience are still staring at me, waiting for me to say something, and none of them seem to care that they aren't wearing any clothes. However it might work for you, so give it a go.

2. Lucky charms. I go for overkill with this. A recent spring clean of my laptop bag produced three hagstones, a bag of runes, a Cornish Piskie, a hand of Fatima, a corn dolly and a horseshoe. If it helps, go for it. Wear your lucky pants, your grandma's moth-eaten scarf - anything that makes you feel better. It won't make the school wifi work, but it might help you breathe.

3. Think of that old adage, What's The Worst That Can Happen? This is quite a good one to remember - try it. Go through every worst case scenario you can think of in your head, and probably what actually happens won't be quite as bad, so long as you're still alive at the end. If you're dead, it really wasn't helpful, but at least you won't care.

4. Try asking the audience questions. Get them to talk for a bit while you breathe. The problem is you have to listen to them while you're breathing, otherwise you have absolutely no idea what they just said and you'll lose your thread. But the principle is sound - people often like taking part, so long as you don't pick on them, and it helps engage the audience. (At the very least, it helps the time to pass more quickly.)

5. Planning. This really does help. A lot of planning. And have far more material available than you think you're going to need.  I take props everywhere too, because of my almost magical ability to manifest a total, inexplicable technology fail. If I have a bag full of objects relevant to the book, at least I can wave those at the audience instead. And print-outs of images. They're good too. (It also takes a while to hand them around, which takes another few seconds off your time slot.)

6. Smile a lot. If you look friendly, the audience might be more kindly disposed towards you. (Probably advisable to try this out in front of a mirror first. You don't want to grin like a psycho, especially not on a school visit.)

You might never get totally used to public speaking, but it does get easier over time. It's a bit like arachnophobia (I have that too). If you have to deal with a lot of spiders, eventually escorting them outside (with the help of a large glass and some stiff card, obvs) gets easier. You can even learn a bit of respect for them and lose a little of the fear. 

Finally, here's a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt to help you onto that stage:

"You gain strength , courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

You never know. You might even get good at it.

Lu Hersey

Twitter: LuWrites

Taking a look behind What the World Doesn't See by Mel Darbon - Tracy Darnton

This week’s blog peeks into Mel Darbon’s much-anticipated second book What the World Doesn’t See published this March by Usborne. It’s already had many fabulous reviews. For me it was a multi-layered, beautiful story as you’d expect from Mel but also about unconditional sibling love, being brave and letting go. You will need tissues for this one.

Stack of What the World Doesn't See Books

Mel, tell us about the latest book.

What the World Doesn’t See is a novel about grief, disability and first love; a story about getting lost and finding yourself. Maudie and Jake’s family is falling to pieces - their mum’s been struggling with her grief since they lost Dad and one night she vanishes. When Jake is put into care, Maudie can’t take it any more. She comes up with a wild plan to pull their family back together – by kidnapping Jake. On the run in Cornwall, Jake and Maudie each find something unexpected – freedom and love. But Maudie and Jake’s physical journey is also a transformative, emotional journey together, which they start to understand when spending time alone together. But can they find their mother and bring their fractured family back together?

My brother was my main inspiration behind writing this story. Characters with any sort of learning disability rarely feature in fiction books and are the most under-represented group in adult and children’s publishing. I didn’t see my brother, who had severe learning disabilities, in any stories when I was growing up. This made me sad, and I wanted to do something about it when I grew up. I decided to write my brother, and others like him who can’t speak for themselves, a story, so that they can be heard.

Mel's brother Guy with a bus-shaped biscuit tin

Any representation they get now tends to focus on the negatives of a condition, because generally people can’t see beyond a label – or don’t know how to. It became increasingly important to me to show the positives – the laughter and joy – that someone like my brother can bring to our lives, through my writing. 

How hard was it to write something so personal and close to home?

It was a roller coaster of emotions because I was revisiting memories that I hadn’t thought about for a long time. When I first started to write the story, I was able to detach myself from it to a certain extent, because even though Maudie is based on myself and my brother Guy is Jake, it was set in a story that had no relation to my life, although various events within the book are true. As the novel progressed, those memories felt like I was reliving them and not just observing them, such as the bowling scene, Maudie and Jake doing art together, the coach journey and the cinema scene. At times I felt very sad at the way my brother had been treated, though equally happy at the fun times and precious memories.

Jake is more capable than my brother Guy was, but his care needs are the same as my brother’s. It made me realise what a lot my brother had to deal with, but also, how my family made sure he lived the best life he possibly could, which was good to recognise considering what happened next.

Guy and Mel celebrating a birthday

Tragically my brother died unexpectedly while I was finishing this book. I was devastated, so this story and representation of someone like Guy became even more important than it already was. I’d written it to make him visible and to give him a voice he couldn’t possibly have for himself, but now it became my eulogy for him. The grief at the death of Maudie and Jake’s father became my grief. I struggled to get the words down and didn’t even know if I could or should, but I knew my brother was too special for me not to finish my story. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without having known him. Guy wasn’t put on this earth to teach anyone anything, but he showed me love, kindness and empathy. The last thing he said to me before he died was, “You alright, Mel?” I wanted everyone to know this kind, generous, gentle giant of a boy. I had to finish the book.

 

How are you tackling this for school visits and what’s the reaction been from students?

My first school visits for What the World Doesn’t See were cancelled due to the teacher’s strike and haven’t been re-scheduled yet, so I can’t tell you any student reactions yet, but it will be interesting to see. My policy on these visits is to be open and honest, which I found with my first book, Rosie Loves Jack, was the best way to be with young people. They respond brilliantly and are always super-interested to know more about my work with people with learning disabilities and their lives. It’s amazing how much they open up themselves and talk about their thoughts and feelings on this subject – and their own lives.

 

Your first book Rosie Loves Jack came out in 2018. What have you learnt to use this time around in 2023?

Patience! Primarily, self-belief and to fight for what you believe in and never give up.

Rosie Loves Jack books

 

What’s left on your author bucket list that you’d like to tick off with What the World Doesn’t See?

To reinforce that learning disability can be tough but is not tragic; you don’t have to feel pity for someone like Jake. There is as much love, laughter and joy in their life as anyone else.

To show that people with learning disabilities feel things as deeply as anyone else and to always remember that people with disabilities are human beings. Their disability is a small part of their complex and interesting lives.

That it is okay to talk about grief, that you are not alone and although you will grieve for the rest of your life, you will learn to live with it; and your loved one will live on in you forever.

That you don’t have to be perfect. It’s enough being just you, as Maudie comes to understand by the end of the novel.

Finally, to reinforce again that we must never make assumptions about people and that by putting on someone else’s shoes we learn to have empathy and from there navigate the world with love, and not hate or fear.

 

Do you have some recommended titles if we’d like to read more books with disability inclusion?

Anthony McGowan: The Truth of Things 

The story of two brothers, Nicky and Kenny, who has learning disabilities, and their struggles to cope with the tough life they lead once their mother has vanished. People can be cruel to Kenny and Dad drinks his troubles away, but the brothers stick together sharing adventures and managing to find humour in the most difficult of circumstances.

Katya Balen: October October 

Katya Balen has a very distinctive voice. She digs deep down into the emotions of the children she writes about. Her writing is beautiful: lyrical, poetic and infused with the sight, sound and smells of the natural world. You will always come away having learned so much about the people she writes about without being told it directly.

Elle McNicholl A Kind of Spark

As a neurodivergent writer Elle is passionate about disability rights and representation. This book is a wonderful story about friendship, courage and self-belief. Eleven-year-old Addie challenges how the people of the town see her and her autism.

Thank you, Mel.

I’m ending this blog with a picture of a bus I like because I know Mel’s brother Guy absolutely loved them.

BUS

He did! I think I’ve spent more time on the top deck of a double decker bus than anyone else I know. Guy always carried a M & S felt bag around with him and inside it was his bus magazine, which he went to get every Saturday at W H Smiths. It never left his side and was buried with him, where it belonged.

Young Guy wearing bus T shirt

 You can follow Mel on Twitter @DarbonMel and @meldarbon on Instagram.

 

Tracy Darnton is the author of YA thrillers Ready or Not, The Rules and The Truth About Lies. Her first picture book My Brother is an Avocado is out with Simon & Schuster in May. She is very honoured to be filed on the bookshelf next to Mel Darbon. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram @TracyDarnton

Happy 5th book birthday to The Goose Road - Rowena House

Since September last year, I've been dodging and diving to keep a creative space open and safe from intrusion, as so many of us do and usually manage against all the odds. 

This month, though, KER-BLAM! 

Just when I thought I'd ducked and dived enough, something I ought to have anticipated snuck out and did for the creative writing PhD, the work-in-progress, and the headspace for this month's ABBA post.

Gutting, but sometimes you just gotta back off.

So here instead of a blog is a link to one of the first interviews I did about The Goose Road, which celebrates its fifth birthday on April 5th, plus the First World War picture of a girl from Etaples, northern France, whose smiling face is (for me) Angelique's, the heroine of the story. 

Good luck to everyone fighting the creative fight. May you outsmart life's nasties and bask in the joy of your stories.

https://authorallsorts.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/book-birthday-the-goose-road-by-rowena-house-interview-by-kerry-drewery/

 

 

 

@HouseRowena on Twitter

Rowena House Author on Facebook

rowenahouse.wordpress.com

Timelines and Datelines by Lynne Benton

After years of writing for children I decided to make a change and write a crime novel for adults.  It is different in some ways, but in others not so very different after all.  Set in a school, various crimes occur, escalating as the days go on.  And, just as in a book for children, I need to get the times and the dates right.  I remember when writing one of my earlier books I suddenly realised that the two children having the adventure had gone for about 36 hours without food or sleep, and without grumbling about it!  (Luckily I spotted this before I wrote the second draft, and made sure they had the right number of hours in a day.)

Timelines and datelines can be crucial: my current book is set in a school, so there must be five days in the school week – unless of course it’s the beginning of term, in which case I have a little more leeway.  And then there’s a weekend.  This, if I’m not very careful, can play havoc with the plot, as I’m discovering.  I tried setting the whole book three days earlier than I’d intended, which gave me a weekend when I needed it – only to find that threw up other complications which I hadn’t foreseen, eg X couldn’t have happened on Friday because Y wouldn’t meet Z until the weekend.  So weekends coming at the wrong time can be extremely annoying for a writer!

As we all know, the timespan of a book can vary from a day (sometimes less than a day) to weeks, months, years even.  And again what we don’t want is a week of seven – or even more – school days and no weekend.  Some things need to happen during the school week, while others need to happen at the weekend. It’s horribly easy to tie yourself in knots trying to sort it all out.

I tried, as one writer friend suggested, writing all the different scenes (crimes or otherwise) on separate cards and spreading them out on the table, then moving them around.  But I found that needed too much space – or at any rate, more than I had available.  (That was when I remembered seeing Robert Harris on television spreading out all the notes for his current book on a billiard table, and wishing I had a billiard table to hand!)

Now I’ve written myself a calendar stating exactly what happens on which day, and how many of them are moveable.  Have too many things happened on one day?  How many is too many?  Could I change one character’s visit to a phone call?  That would take up less time.  And again, pace is important.  Too many things happening at breakneck speed could be really exciting – in the right sort of book.  On the other hand it may feel too rushed, so the poor reader never gets a chance to catch his/her breath.  We need to get a good balance.  And the occasional breathing space.

Well I’d better get back to it.  I’m currently suffering from my second bout of the dreaded Covid, so haven’t done as much to my book over the last few days as I’d planned.  This means I’ve got some catching up to do – so the weekend coming when it did has been most useful.  I knew I had to get my Blog written and posted by today (the 13^th), ready to appear on the 14^th, and very luckily today I’m beginning to feel a little better.

So this weekend came at exactly the right time for this writer!

  Website: www.lynnebenton.com

Last book:

Billy and the Queen (published Amazon)

What April Read -- Writing about reading by Sheena Wilkinson

I often have a sense of whether or not I'll get on with someone, based on their reading tastes. And that extends to fictional characters. 

As a child, I loved reading about what my favourite characters read, but often they were too busy being heroines to have time for reading. Pony book characters ploughed into technical tomes like The Horse: Its Treatment in Health and Disease while shunning the school stories I loved -- which made me feel unworthy as a pony book reader. Chalet School characters were often a little earnest in their reading, which made me feel inadequate, or naively read silly school stories which gave them The Wrong Idea about the Chalet. But from Antonia Forest I learned about Lord Peter Wimsey and Brat Farrar,, described by Ginty Marlow as ‘an easy re-read’.

I loved Salley Vicker's novel The Librarian, for the setting and the story, but also for its celebration of children's books.

In Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau, my first adult novel, I was able to give my characters time to read without its feeling indulgent. Of course my heroines April and Martha are kept busy with the marriage bureau of the title, but both are, to some extent, lonely, and books are companions on long solitary Sundays. Just for fun, I thought I’d share some of their reading with you. The book is set in 1934, which dictated my choices, but like me they read a mixture of up-to-date and classic – though their up-to-date is my classic, and like me they aren’t above the comfort of a childhood favourite when times are tough.

                                                          

We realise early on that April is a reader. One of the first things she says to Martha is:

And it was worth it to watch all the people. I hardly got ten pages of my book read. It’s the new E.M. Delafield. Do you know her? She’s awful funny. Very English – mind you, everything here seems very English to me.’ 

Martha also likes to read. In the first version of the book, set in 1933, Martha bought Murder Must Advertise, but when I changed the action to 1934, in order to allow April to watch Little Women, which wasn't released until late 1933, this detail had to be updated too. 

She left him outside the bookshop ... with strict orders to speak to nobody, while she dashed inside to pick up The Nine Tailors, the new Dorothy L. Sayers. 

In the next scene, April has suffered a Very Unpleasant Encounter, and is looking for a comfort read on her landlady's bookshelves. Don't we all recognise that sense that we don't know what we want to read until we see it? 

She would know what she wanted when she saw it: nothing too demanding. Maybe a reread of an old friend? ...  There was all of Jane Austen, but she wasn’t in the mood for Jane Austen. Too much about marriage. (What aspect of marriage bureau have you failed to grasp? It still stung.) 

She finally settles on a children's book, as many an Awfully Big Blogger has done too. I'm not sure if Rivals of the Chalet School ever was reviewed in The Times, but what a lovely thought:

Aha – the children’s books: Rivals of the Chalet School – now that couldn’t wring the withers. What a strange book for Felicity, though. She opened it and a little slip of paper fell out. With compliments. The Times. It must be a review copy. Fancy living with someone who reviewed books for The Times! 

There are magazines on the shelves too, and rather to April's surprise these are of rather a low type: 

But actually most of the magazines were of the Peg’s Paper type: the sort of thing the girls in the factory used to read. She looked at the titles of the stories: ‘The Sheikh’s Revenge’; ‘She Was Only a Scullerymaid’; ‘Virtue Forsaken!’ She flicked through the last one and read of Molly the mill girl who had been kidnapped outside the mill by a brigand (what was a brigand, exactly?) He was a very handsome brigand, with dark curls and a cruel lip but things did not augur well for poor Molly’s virtue. 

And finally, does anyone remember the Forest Fay books by Cicely Rafter? April does. 

She recognised some of her own old favourites, Jane Austen and the Brontës as well as a whole shelf of modern novels and some of children’s books: Swallows and Amazons, and a whole set of the Forest Fay books. 

All right, I made the Forest Fay books up -- which was much harder, and much less fun, than giving my heroines my own favourites to read. 

Do any readers have favourite bookish bits of novels? Or, for those of you are writers, have you ever given your characters a favourite book to read?  

Oh no, not more about Dahl? Not exactly... Anne Rooney

"Times were tough. It hadn't rained for years. There was nothing in the garden except one small cabbage and a stick of celery. Little Else and her grandmother were so poor they only had dinner once a week. They were so thin they had to walk over the same ground twice to throw a shadow."
Little Else, Trick Rider, Julie Hunt, 2010

This isn't funny any more. Was it funny in 2010? With distance from the kind of poverty that now surrounds us, perhaps it was — except for the poor children. (It's not as though there weren't any poor children in 2010.) A third of children in the UK now live in poverty. A third of children might find this making fun of their plight uncomfortable.

How do we read children's books from the past, even the very recent past? Should we change them to match modern lives and sensibilities? If we choose to change them, which things should we change? It seems the recent Dahl edits, and the slightly more distant Blyton edits, tinker at the edges but don't seem to have any recognisable parameters within which change is effected. In 2010, Hodder changed some of Blyton's books, often in rather pointless ways. Few children couldn't understand 'mother and father' — and it wasn't changed to the gender neutral 'parents', but to 'mum and dad' — the preferred terms of middle-class southerners replacing the old-fashioned but generic terms. The change of 'dirty tinker' to 'traveller' was more sensible. Travellers and their children have a hard enough time without children's books condoning and contributing to casual abuse. 

Removing directly offensive terms targeted at groups who haven't chosen the characteristic being mocked or derided is not at all the same as pandering to a kind ahistorical insensibility about language. I'm reading The Little White Horse (Elizabeth Goudge, 1946) with MB at the moment. I often have to stop to explain a word, or a concept. Yesterday's session led to a discussion of how children's lives have changed over the last 50 years. Children need to learn that times change, language changes, behaviour and ideas change. Some behaviour and ideas in the past would now be considered inappropriate. But some ideas and behaviour now are inappropriate, and condoned. We've just had a Prime Minister who referred to Muslim women as 'letter boxes'. Women peacefully holding a vigil after the murder of another woman by a police officer were ill-treated and prosecuted. The current government wants to send people fleeing war zones to Rwanda. I don't think sanitising the past is a priority. (Though of course it might serve the right-wing nostalgia for a little England where everything was rosy.) We aren't preparing children for life in the present by refusing to keep words like 'plump' in books from the past. The issue of whether to use the word in a new book is, to my mind, separate. 

If we are going to change books from the past, I would propose that we set clear parameters (and say 'modernized' on the cover, quite clearly). Those parameters should be about directly caricaturing, ridiculing or bullying characters on the basis of characteristics they can't help. That ridiculing or bullying should be on the part of the narrator/author, not a character in the book who might be being shown in a bad light through their treatment of others. So if character A calls character B a fat slob, that's not the same as the narrative introducing character B as a fat slob. The second endorses criticism of being overweight and inactive. The first sets up character A for a downfall, discovery, revenge, or whatever. 

We need nuance and parameters. And then we need to discuss whether it impinges on the moral rights of a dead author to make changes they would not have wanted. We might need a test case. Moral rights continue for the duration of copyright and, most importantly, can't be assigned to someone else. So although Netflix have the copyright in Dahl's work, can they violate his moral rights?