One from the past - Diana Wynne Jones, by Ellen Renner

Well, you're not going to believe this - but Alex English's post is not going to appear today because yesterday, before she could put it up, her house was struck by lightning and she currently (!) has no wifi or power. We wish her luck in sorting this out, and in the meantime, I decided to seek out our most popular post ever, and put it up for your delectation and delight.

So here it is - from 2011, with a mahoosive 11,670 views, Ellen Renner, on Diana Wynne Jones. Enjoy.

Diana Wynne Jones: Best Loved Books - Ellen Renner

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 adults, some knowing and some innocent of the children's true identities. This is sheer horror, a darkness of concept handled with perfection, not candy-coated but made acceptable to young readers because of the accuracy of her characterisation of her young hero Tonino. Throughout the book, his observations, reactions, emotions ring absolutely true for a boy of eight to ten, including a lovely messy cake-eating-in-front-of-adults scene (which I frankly stole and recreated in Castle of Shadows), girls-as-other, unthinking rivalry between clans. The Magicians of Caprona is a tour de force in point of view and voice from beginning to end.

Those are my three favourite books by Diana Wynne Jones. What are yours?

The Market or Institutions or Both? Which Route Produces the Best Kids' Books Part 1 by Emma Barnes

With the recent election for Labour Party leader, there's been a lot of debate on whether goods and services like electricity, train travel, health etc should be provided via government institutions or privately through the market, or a mixture of both. So far as I know, none of the candidates put forward a view with regard to children's books (correct me if I'm wrong!) So I thought I'd do a bit of ruminating on the subject myself. It may be a rather dry-sounding issue for a books blog – but important all the same.

It's a Market, Innit?

In some ways, children's books are a classic free market good. Books are commissioned and produced by publishers, who are typically private companies aiming to produce a profit, and are then sold in bookshops or online (again, privately owned companies hoping to make a profit) to consumers (parents children and teenagers themselves). The writer is usually a self-employed individual, receiving sale-dependent royalties. So far, so free market. (And here many authors reading this will be giving hollow laughs, thinking they know all this already: how many writers have heard that though an editor “loves” their story, they can't see “a market” for it or they don't think they could “market” it successfully? In fact, there's a lot of writers out there who regularly bemoan the commercial nature of modern publishing.)

Or is it?

But in fact, there is a lot of non-market involvement too. For one thing, schools and libraries buy large numbers of children's books, and provide them to children without charge. They fund this with public money (taxation) and have traditionally different criteria for choosing books from the individual consumers who go into bookshops. Librarians and teachers shape wider consumer taste too - for example, by reviewing books, or by running awards (one of the most prestigious children's books awards, the Carnegie, is chosen by librarians) or by inviting authors into schools to discuss their books. Some writers receive funding through the government-funded Arts Council, or rely on income from school visits and library events, or from teaching creative writing in universities or elsewhere. Then there is the role of the National Curriculum in determining which educational books are published, or book festivals in promoting books and authors. There is big institutional framework, which is not driven by profit.

Does all this matter? A book is a book – if it ends up in a child's hands via a 3 for 2 table in a big chain bookstore, or via a library shelf after being on an awards shortlist, the response of the child is what matters, surely?

It might not be so simple.  Looking back on my own favourite childhood reads, I'd argue that the two routes can produce rather different books. Here are a few examples, all of them books I loved and cherished, but which I came across in different ways..

Emma's Bookshelf - the Market-Led books

Enid Blyton was wildly popular with kids but was widely shunned by the books “establishment” - she didn't get prizes, was often excluded from schools and libraries for her allegedly dubious values, both cultural and literary, and her work was famously banned by the BBC.  But her books sold (and still sell) in bucket loads – a definite case of the customer winning out.

My favourites included the Secrets series, the Famous five, the Magic Faraway Tree...I could go on.

The “Jill” Books by Ruby Ferguson – this girls' pony series never won any prizes, but like many readers I loved its wit and verve.

The Chalet School Books – girls' school stories were another genre often regarded with pure snobbery by the establishment – no prizes or reviews - yet this series not only established a huge fan base (and still has a strong adult following) but surely deserves credit for its unusually cosmopolitan setting and cross-national cast of characters.

Roald Dahl – it's strange to remember that Dahl was actually viewed with suspicion at first by many in the UK book world. Eventually – after his enormous popularity in the US could no longer be ignored – he was published in the UK, and of course became equally successful.

How did I acquire these books? I never saw any of them in my local library or at my school (except for, perhaps, Dahl). Instead I was either bought them as presents or I actually bought them for myself - not new (I didn't have the funds) but second hand from the shelves of DL's Book Exchange, where the small children's section was squeezed in between the shelves of adult paperbacks.

Non-Market Led

Some of my favourite books, though, were less mainstream. I was an avid reader of historical fiction – a lot of which, I suspect, depended on libraries for sales and shelf-space. The covers were often rather worthy and “educational” in appearance – not designed to immediately entice a child. Such books would sit on the library shelf until some child like me stumbled upon it, decided to give it a go - and then took it to their hearts.

My battered copy

A classic example is One is One.  A real slow burner, with much dense description, set in the medieval period, it relates the story of Stephen, a bullied boy whose artistic gift  ultimately leads him to choose life in a monastery over the adventure of being a knight. Doesn't exactly sound like a crowd pleaser? But it's a wonderful book and actually still in print today. (It's harder to imagine it being taken on and published today, I have to admit).

Needless to say, I never found any of these books at DL's book exchange.

Both Market and Institutions

What's interesting to me is that some favourite authors fall between camps. Or rather they depended on both routes for success.  

Diana Wynne Jones, although probably one of the most influential children's fantasy authors of the twentieth century, was never a household name. I actually bought Charmed Life myself, new, at a Puffin book sale at my school. (It was very rare that I bought a new book for myself.) So – that was my choice was as a consumer. However, it was a choice from a range of books that would have been considered suitable to offer in a school in those days – the solid titles, rather than the glitzy. (And Charmed Life had won an award, which might have led to its inclusion.) My other favourite, The Ogre Downstairs, was acquired through school too.  Like Forest, I'd suggest Jones reached her ardent fans by negotiating a rather tricky route between commercial and institutional approval.

Antonia Forest never won a huge audience, but she did get favourable reviews and Carnegie nominations early in her career. Later on, though, when many librarians shunned her for being “elitist” it is probably the fact that her school stories were so squarely “genre”, and so were released by Puffin, which ensured she continued to find enthusiastic fans.

Kaye Webb biography

Kaye Webb's biography is a fascinating insight into some of these interactions, and how children's publishing worked, during the time when I was a child reader. Webb was the chief at Puffin – the immensely influential paperback children's imprint which brought many authors into the mass market. Webb had enormous freedom to follow her tastes – but, as her biographer points out, the massive expansion in demand from libraries and schools was equally important in trends, creating new demands - for example, for books about children from less privileged backrounds, something publishers like Webb then responded to. This was an “institutional” objective – more diverse characters – but there were also more purely “market” pressures: Webb was not herself a particular fan of Roald Dahl, but his enormous appeal to children (demonstrated through hardback sales) meant she did publish him, and his titles became some of Puffin's most successful ever.

the first Mantlemass book

One of my own childhood favourites, the Mantlemass series – was published by Webb after she had surveyed libraries about their most popular titles. I remember myself originally discovered the Mantlemass series in hardback in my public library (I can still visualize the covers) – then acquiring my own puffin copies, to read again and again.

My childhood reading would have suffered if I'd been only reliant on one category of books – the purely commercial or the institutionally approved. Both were needed. (And both, it has to be said, delivered their clangers too. The pulpier titles of DL's Book Exchange did not always deliver on their promise. Some of the “worthy” school and library reads were pretty turgid too.)  When I look  at children's books, a mixture of organisations, of market and non-profit-driven institutions, seems to have been what worked.

I thought I'd try and organise these thoughts a little.  Here, it seems to me, are some of the pros and cons of both categories.

Good Things About the Market

• Not snobbish – if a child likes it, and parents are prepared to buy it, they will publish it.

• Interested in all age groups and tastes – all “markets” in fact.

• Respects “genre” books – school stories, humour, ponies, mysteries etc

• Want books to be attractive and so compete with other entertainment/consumer goods.

Bad Things About Market

• Publicity potential, celebrity tie-ins, “hooks”, “high concept”, current fashions, may all end up more important than inherent quality.

• “Quieter” books, experimental books, unusual protagonists, niche interests etc may all get overlooked.

• Responds to purchasing power – which means some groups of readers will be neglected.

Good Things About Non-Market Institutions

• Don't just have to think about profit

• May be more likely to reward innovation, experiment or pure literary quality

• Can allow children to discover more "educational” or worthy themes, or pursue minority interests by providing slow-burn, non-glitzy books

• May help to include groups with low purchasing power

Bad Things About Non-Market Institutions

• May be overly “worthy” or snobbish – eg about genre books, overtly “commerical” titles – or inversely snobbish (eg the 1970s backlash against “elitist” titles)

• Has its own fads and fashions

• Adult-led – danger of losing touch with child readers

• May have objectives which may come before pure quality or enjoyment. 

This has turned into a monster post - for which, apologies! Meantime, I'd like to hear your thoughts. How are books being provided - how should they be provided?  How did you get hold of your favourite books, then and now?  And how does this all impact on the children's book market today (a question I'll return to next time...)

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Emma's Wild Thing series for 8+ about the naughtiest little sister ever. (Cover - Jamie Littler)
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
(Cover: Emma Chichester Clark)
"Funny, clever and satisfying..." Books for Keeps

Emma's Website
Emma’s Facebook Fanpage
Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite

Is There More Science in Fantasy than Real Life? Thinking About Science in Children's Books - by Emma Barnes

This week is British Science Week, when events up and down the country will be celebrating maths, science, technology and engineering. Many of these events will be directed at children and happening in schools. It's one of only many initiatives aimed at interesting children and teenagers in science. But while there may be plenty of workshops and demonstrations, what about the role of children's fiction?

Fiction, after all, is where children see themselves reflected.  It is also where they explore possibilities.  When I longed to be a ballet dancer, if was because I had read Ballet Shoes.  If I thought about becoming a vet it was because I was neck deep in James Herriot.  When I decided to study history, my interest had first been fired by Jean Plaidy's Young Elizabeth and Barbara Willard's Mantlemass books.

Where are the stories that excite children about science?

As I said in this post, scientists, when they do appear in children's books at all, are often of a type – bad, mad and dangerous to know. If you are trying to interest a young person in science, or maybe find fiction books that a science-mad kid might adore, you're likely to have a tough time.  Children's books in which science plays any role in the plot, or is portrayed realistically, are few and far between.

(This is true of adult fiction, too.  In fact this site, Lablit, is an attempt to address the problem.)

Even where science seems to be to the forefront, it often isn't.  In the classic A Wrinkle In Time, heroine Meg's parents are scientists.  But it is the power of love that enables Meg to save her brother, not scientific discovery.  It's really a spiritual message that L'Engle is interested in, more than the scientific principles of time travel.  In another classic, Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, the scientists have created the immensely intelligent rats, but are too stupid to understand their own creation, while the rats' task is to escape and try and create a better way of life.  

In fact the theme of both books - scientists messing up, and more humane types dealing with the consequences - is probably a perennial in children's books.

Even the recent emergence of geek cool, epitomised by those nerdy, scientific genii of the Big Bang Theory, while making it easier for any kid that likes to hang out in a physic lab, or spend his or her time coding, hasn't done much to alter the content of children's fiction.  At least, not on the shelves of the bookshops I know.

I have no science background, but twice I have used science in my books, and in a positive way.  Even more unusually, I've done so within the form of funny, middle grade fiction.  In Jessica Haggerthwaite, Witch Dispatcher Jessica (who wants to be a Famous Scientist one day) designs her own experiment to test and evaluate the results of her mother's magical potions on the tomato plants. The result is surprising for everyone – but as a good scientist Jessica soon works out all the implications. It is actually the only piece of children's fiction I know in which a child conducts a serious scientific experiment.

In Wolfie, the heroine, Lucie, is given a pet dog – which just happens to be a talking wolf. At the climax of the story it becomes very important indeed whether Wolfie is a dog or a wolf, and luckily it so happens that Lucie's neighbour is a distinguished Professor of Zoology and expert on Canid and Lupine Studies. (I say luckily - in fact, this is something that Lucie has to uncover with some difficulty.) The Professor's judgement is rigorously scientific – but there's a twist...

These are the only two of my books with a scientific element, and the interesting thing is that they both feature a strong magical element. Jessica Haggerthwaite is not actually a fantasy, but her mother, Mrs Haggerthwaite, is of the firm opinion that she is a professional witch and acts accordingly. Wolfie – complete with wolves that talk and fly – is definitely fantasy.  And yet, science and fantasy are opposites - aren't they?

Or perhaps not.  If science rarely crops up among "real life" children's books, then maybe there is a reason.  For science is an activity sealed off from the everyday lives of children - and indeed, of most non-scientists. Amateur scientists rarely ascend the rooftops these days to observe the stars through their telescopes, or gather fossils for museums to display.  Science goes on in dedicated laboratories barred to children, and wrapped around with Health and Safety regulations.  Its practitioners are almost always paid, professional experts.

So perhaps the practice of science, the devising of theorems, the following of formula, the investigations of nature and the attempts to understand and control it, are better represented in fantasy, than everyday life? Professor Snape with his Potions laboratory, and Professor Sprout with her careful Herbology experiments at Hogwarts may be the best representations of a scientific laboratory (minus the Health and Safety regulations) available to children. Diana Wynne Jones's Ogre Downstairs, with the chemistry set that goes drastically wrong, or her  Charmed Life with the dangerous, illicit dragonsblood, conveys the perilous nature of certain substances better than any real life scenario. (Charmed Life also features linked worlds – an idea taken from modern physics.)  And then there is Philip Pullman's Northern Lights with its mysterious Dust...

A recent report into What Kids Are Reading suggests that children's choices of books tends to be evenly divided between funny real-life stories, and fantasy. Is it actually in the fantasy section of their bookshelves that children get the greatest chance to think about what is such an important part of real life -  science?

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Emma's series for 8+ Wild Thing about the naughtiest little sister ever is published by Scholastic. 
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is published by Strident.  It is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps

Emma's Website
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Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite

Behind the Green Door - Cathy Butler

There’s an old piano and they play it hot

Behind the green door,

Don't know what they’re doin’ but they laugh a lot 

Behind the green door,

Wish they’d let me in so I could find out what’s 

Behind the green door.

So sang Jim Lowe in 1956, in a song that epitomizes the experience of the excluded, of the Outs who wish they were In. It’s a universal aspect of the human condition, no doubt, this feeling that someone else is having a better time than you, and that if you could just get beyond the Green Door – whatever form it takes – then your happiness would be complete. Writers experience it quite starkly, for every published writer was once an unpublished writer, pressing his or her nose up against the glass and pining for recognition; but human discontent assumes many shapes. C. S. Lewis wrote  a very insightful essay on this subject called “The Inner Ring”, and if you only have time to read either this post or that essay, I recommend you choose the latter.

Well then; last Sunday I went to the Cheltenham Literary Festival to take part in an author session. It was only my second visit to the Festival – to my shame, for it’s less than 50 miles from Bristol, an easy trip up the M5 or by direct train. But small efforts can be more daunting than big ones, as you know.

My first visit was a few years ago, to hear Alan Garner. On that occasion I was very much a fan, standing happily in the signing queue with my copies of The Owl Service and Elidor. In fact I found myself next to another author in the shape of both halves of Tobias Druitt. Garner’s a writer’s writer, I think, so meeting other authors there was not surprising, but because he signs in a careful calligraphic script his queues move slowly. There was plenty of time to chat.

Last Sunday was different. This time I was a stand-in for Ursula Jones, who was herself a stand-in for her sister Diana Wynne Jones. When Diana died in 2011 she left a not-quite-finished novel, The Islands of Chaldea, which Ursula was asked by the family to conclude – and conclude it she did, quite masterfully in my opinion. The plan had been for Ursula to do an event “in conversation” with the Australian fantasy writer Garth Nix, who’s on tour promoting his excellent new book Clariel, but unfortunately she had to pull out at short notice. I was suggested as a replacement, since I know Diana’s work well and had been consulted about The Islands of Chaldea in the early stages.

The event was a success: Garth Nix is a fascinating and funny speaker, and Julia Eccleshare made an excellent host. I hope the audience weren’t too disappointed at having me there rather than Ursula, but if they were they hid it well. But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about the Authors’ Tent (otherwise known as the Green Room), where speakers at the various events are able to relax and take refreshment. I’ve been in Green Rooms before, at fantasy conventions and the like, and have helped myself to coffee and trail mix by the bucket, but none has been quite as prestigious or luxuriously appointed as the pleasure dome decreed by the powers that be in Cheltenham. (I am as yet a stranger to the Edinburgh Festival's fabled Authors’ Yurt, though in my personal mythology it’s on a par with Arthur’s Seat.)

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to spend much time in Cheltenham's Authors' Tent, and since I was driving I was unable to indulge in the free beer and wine, but I did stop for a few minutes to eat a scone and take in the scene around me. Writers sat here and there, chatting merrily. Some I recognized, some I felt I ought to recognize, but all looked entirely comfortable – and who wouldn’t, in a setting that was in itself a comforting reassurance that, “Yes, you have arrived”?  In one corner a crèche of authorial children frolicked, and everywhere the tireless employees of the Festival served, cleared up, replenished and gave a general masterclass in the anticipation of whims. They were all fantastically cheery and helpful. They were so helpful, in fact, that I began to feel a little suspicious.  Could they really be that anxious for my happiness? Anyone who’s spent as much time as I have pondering “Hansel and Gretel” knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Might the scone be drugged? Would I wake to find myself chained to a gang of midlist authors in one of GCHQ's notorious data mines?

But no such calamity ensued. “Ooh, a bowl of miniature chocolate bars!” I exclaimed as I was getting ready to leave. “May I take one?” They were Green & Black, after all. “Take several!” they exclaimed. “We’re so grateful you were able to come!” Though I peered closely, I could detect no trace of irony in their expressions. They really seemed to mean it.

I was delighted with my visit, brief though it was, and my temporary access to the Inner Ring of lionized authors. Except that, just as I was leaving, I caught sight of another door – I could have sworn it was green – slightly removed from the main crush of the Authors’ Tent. Approaching it, I was turned brusquely away by an unsmiling guard: “Man Booker Winners only,” he informed me. With a sigh I set off back to Bristol, but not before I had briefly glimpsed the scene within through the green door’s tinted glass. And now, when I sleep, my dreams are haunted by the memory of Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Hilary Mantel splashing in their exclusive Booker Winners’ hot tub, chinking complimentary champagne flutes, and laughing, laughing, laughing…

Rereading for the wrong reasons? Lari Don

One of the most wonderful but most troubling things about being a writer is that books become work.

Not just writing books, but reading them too.

This can be wonderful, when I tell myself that wasting (spending, investing) a whole day reading a novel that I’m desperate to finish, is in fact legitimate work. But it can also be troubling, when I realise that something I used to love is now something I HAVE TO DO.

This changes my relationship with books. Having to read books, having to think about and talk about books, not because I want to, not because that’s the book I want to spend time with, but because I’ve committed myself to an event or an article or a blog post which makes reading that particular book right now a necessity.

I live in Edinburgh, and I’m doing various events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival next month, mostly in the children’s and schools programme. But I’m also leading a reading workshop on Diana Wynne Jones, a writer whose books inspired me as a child, whose books still inspire me now, whose books I love to read.

But this summer, I have HAD to read them. I have had to reread the ones I am committed to discussing. (Books that, to be fair, I suggested and wanted to discuss, but even so…)

And suddenly I found myself resisting rereading them. I love rereading my favourite books. Mostly because I enjoy them, and am happy to reenter their worlds. And partly because, especially with books by Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman and others who are inspired by tales of old magic, I recognise more references every time I read them. But that’s when I choose to reread. When a book calls to me and says, come on over here and visit me again…

This summer, there’s been a pile of DWJ books on my study floor, which I knew I had to reread, but which I kept stepping round. Even though The Power of Three is my favourite ever children’s book, and Howl’s Moving Castle is in the top five, and Fire And Hemlock radically changed my relationship with my favourite Scottish fairy tale, and Chrestmanci is the most perfect wizardly wizard ever created… I’ve been resisting. Because I felt that I had to read them, that it was my job, that it was homework.

a small fraction of the DWJ pile!

And this has made me consider how, to some extent, every book I read is work. That everything I read leaves something behind, like a wave on a beach, which changes and inspires and shapes everything I will subsequently write. That I learn from every book, whether I love it or not. That the reader I am creates the writer I am.

But I also know that if I am conscious of what I’m learning from a book, then I haven’t truly lost myself in it. And the books that I just thoroughly enjoy, that I don’t read as a writer, that I just read as a wide-eyed reader, desperate to find out what happens next (and not noticing how the writer is making me care) those are the books I love the most. Probably those are the books that influence me most. And certainly those are the books I happily and enthusiastically reread.

And so. I took a deep breath. I started with Dogsbody, and The Ogre Downstairs, and Howl and those castles. And I have had the most glorious weekend rereading Diana Wynne Jones. To be honest, most of the time, I forgot why I was rereading them (workshop, what workshop?) and just lost myself in the wonderful magical world of her imagination.

Lari Don is the award-winning author of 21 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers. Lari’s website 
Lari’s own blog 
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Baring my Sole - Cathy Butler

Trying to unravel one’s own motivations can be like looking down a deep, dark well. You drop a stone, you hear a splashy voice echo back, but by the time it reaches you you’re no longer sure whether it belongs to a Salmon of Knowledge or a warty toad. Most wells contain several of each.

Three weeks ago I took part in a charity event – the first time I’d done such a thing in many years. It was a firewalk, in which I took a stroll over six yards worth of glowing wood embers at around 500^oC. As a confirmed physical coward, why did I do something so uncharacteristic?

Partly it was to raise money for a charity – St Peter’s Hospice. I’m an admirer of the hospice movement in any case, but I am also well aware that March (when the firewalk took place) marked the second anniversary of the death there of my friend, the children’s writer Diana Wynne Jones. I visited her several times in the days before she died and was vastly impressed by the dedication of all the staff there – as was she.

That was probably the best reason for firewalking. But it wasn’t the only one. I’d also been feeling that I was overdue to do something that would shunt me out of my comfort zone – and this was as good a way as any. In the event the walk was surprisingly easy, and wholly pain-free – but it was definitely a change from my usual appointment with Eggheads. That’s got to be a good thing, right?

Then there was the other reason – the writer’s reason. I did the firewalk because it was an experience that I could file away, ready to use at some date when I might want it for a book.

That’s nothing to be ashamed of, I suppose. But I do feel slightly ashamed, all the same. Most writers will be familiar with the little Secretary who sits on their shoulders, even at moments of great emotion and personal drama, noting their reactions. Sometimes it feels extremely intrusive. “So, this is what it feels like to fall in love,” he says, dipping his quill and licking his lips. Or: “So, this is what it’s like to stand next to your own father’s body. You’ll be able to use that some time, won’t you?” Or: “So, this is what happens in A&E? How fortunate that your son fell off the slide.”

I’m trying to remember the name of the famous American novelist – Mailer? Updike? – who used to manufacture rows with his own family as a means of generating dialogue. I’ve never done anything quite so manipulative, but even when events just happen along there’s something disconcerting about the speed with which that Secretary whips out his notepad and waits, pen poised, ready to jot.

Someday I may write a novel in which a character walks over red-hot embers, and when I do it will have the smack of authenticity because of my firewalk. After all, I really know what it’s like. But for the same reason, I may feel  a bit of a fraud for writing it. You just can't win.

(However, it’s not too late to donate! You can do so at my firewalking page, here.)

Constructing Complexity - Cathy Butler

Fiction for adults, fiction for children – which is more complex?


The obvious answer is that books for adults are generally more complex than books for children. They use a wider vocabulary and more sophisticated language, deal in “adult” concepts and experiences, are fluent in abstract ideas and thoughts, and assume a familiarity with literary genres and devices that cannot be counted on in the average child reader.

Once we look carefully at this list, however, some of its items appear rather less solid. First, not all books for adults are in fact particularly sophisticated. Literary fiction of the kind that makes the Man Booker shortlist represents only a small percentage of the adult fiction published and sold, and it would misleading to take Hilary Mantel and her peers as representative of “adult fiction”. Moreover, if the vocabulary of (some) children’s books is limited, this need not imply simplicity: ask Hemingway or William Blake. Nor are sophisticated post-modern devices such as intertextuality, frame-breaking, genre-mixing and mise en abyme the preserve of adult literature: in fact, they are probably found more often in picture books for young children, from Lauren Child’s Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book to the Ahlbergs’ Jolly Postman.

It’s true that children’s books don’t generally deal with specifically adult experiences such as old age or marital infidelity (although some do); but equally, adult books don’t in general deal with the specific experiences of children, such as going to school for the first time. None of these experiences is more, or less, deserving of treatment in fiction than the others.

What about plots, though? Are the plots of adult books more complex than those of children’s books? Here I’m reminded of an article written by Diana Wynne Jones shortly after she started writing adult fiction in the early 1990s, having already been a children’s writer for almost twenty years. She explains that her assumptions were in fact the opposite – that a point she would have explained only once in a book for children she felt the need to repeat several times for adult readers: “These poor adults are never going to understand this; I must explain it to them twice more and then remind them again later in different terms.” This idea derived from her experience of being told by adults that they found the plots of some of her children’s books hard to follow (and that therefore they must be "too difficult for children"). Children themselves, however, never seemed to have any difficulty. Jones’s explanation is an interesting one:

Children are used to making an effort to understand. They are asked for this effort every hour of every school day and, though they may not make the effort willingly, they at least expect it.

Adults, by contrast, are used to knowing things already, and their tolerance for uncertainty – negative capability would be a good term, if Keats hadn’t already nabbed it – is correspondingly less. All of us, when we read a novel, will encounter unfamiliar ideas and unexplained facts. I suppose we must have a kind of mental “holding pen” in which to place such items, in the hope that they will be clarified and resolved at some later point. But perhaps children’s holding pens have a greater capacity than those of adults, simply because they are more accustomed to dealing with new experiences? If so, we might expect them to be more able to deal with complex plots – and, in that sense at least, to be more sophisticated readers.


I don’t think that’s a complete answer to the rather silly question with which I started – because of course complexity is multifaceted – but I do find it an intriguing idea. In any case, if I ever see an adult book with as complex a plot as Jones’s Hexwood I'll be very surprised.

BOOKSELLER SUNDAYS: What greater pleasure? – Eve Griffiths at The Bookcase, Lowdham

The second in our new series of Sunday guest blogs by booksellers who work with children’s authors. These guest blogs are designed to show life behind the scenes of a crucial but neglected relationship – the one between a writer and a bookseller. These days, such relationships are more intense and more important, as increasing numbers of authors go on the road to promote children’s books – a goal shared by the booksellers who will contribute to this series.

The Bookcase is a ‘small independent bookshop with a big imagination’ situated in the village of Lowdham, eight miles north of Nottingham. The Bookcase’s proprietor is Jane Streeter (second from right), who runs the shop with a friendly team: Louise Haines, Jo Blaney, myself, Marion Turner and Kendall Turner (pictured left to right above).

Three years ago I (as one of the assistants) began a reading group at our local village school. This coincided with our 10th Annual Book Festival. So, to celebrate, I went in once a month until we had read 10 books. The 12 children read each book and then wrote a review, which formed the basis of a display at our book festival. We read all sorts – from contemporary authors to Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton – and one poetry book. I have used a few different poetry books, but the first was Carol Ann Duffy’s The Hat, which was very timely as I’d handed it out to the children just before she was announced as the Poet Laureate! We’ve also used Gervase Phinn’s There’s an Alien in the Classroom, and others over the three years we’ve been involved in the project.


Each month I went into school so that we could have a discussion, which made the youngsters feel very grown up!


The idea became so popular that I have been approached by other schools, so this year I am working in four schools – always with Year 6 children. The group is aimed at the more able readers. (The thinking behind this is that so much is done to encourage the less able readers: those who are keen readers need some sort of outlet for their enthusiasm.)


This year, I have found a real difference in ability from one school to another. Not only is the reading ability markedly higher in one school, but the children are much more mature. This makes it harder for me to choose appropriate books, so I’m always keen to hear of the experiences of others who work with children of a similar age.


Michael Morpurgo is, of course, unfailingly popular, but I’ve also had real success with Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother and Morris Gleitzman’s Once. In both cases, several of the children have gone on to read the sequels. We have offered a discount to reading group members who have ordered sequels.


After Christmas I will be discussing David Almond’s Skellig with two schools and Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones with our most able readers and Once with the fourth group.

After reading your blog, I have ordered a copy of Penny Dolan’s A Boy Called M O U S E to consider as one of next half-term’s books. With four schools to visit, I see each group once only per half-term, now. I really enjoy having one poetry book to discuss, and each member is expected to read aloud a poem of their choice. There is always one group member – usually a boy – who chooses the shortest in the book, so they then have to read a poem of my choosing!


One of the greatest joys I have experienced is a group of reading enthusiasts clamouring to tell you how much they have enjoyed a book. What greater pleasure can there be than to have introduced children to a book they love and an author they want to read again!

Please let me know of any really popular choices!

Eve Griffiths, The Bookcase

The Bookcase’s website: http://www.thebookcase.co.uk/

Watch out for Independent Booksellers Week a campaign celebrating independents on the high street, which this year takes place between 30th June and 7th July.

Remembering Diana Wynne Jones - Cathy Butler

Last Sunday found me at St George’s in Bristol, a deconsecrated church now used as a concert hall, and frequently the venue from which BBC lunchtime concerts are broadcast. What brought me there was not music, but a celebration of the life and work Diana Wynne Jones, who died last year, and who was both one of the best British children’s writers of her generation and, I’m proud to say, a friend.

I’d had some part in organizing and publicizing the event, but we weren’t sure how many people were actually going to turn up. We knew we could count on fifty or so family, friends and fans, but it was gratifying to see something close to two hundred people in the hall. Downstairs in the crypt there was a sale of spare copies of Diana’s books, accumulated over the years from her many publishers. The translated editions were made into a tottering Babel Tower, from which I was able to claim a rare German copy of The Skiver's Guide, published as Handbuch zum Wegtauchen. Proceeds went to St Peter’s Hospice, where she died in March 2011 (and it’s still not too late to contribute!). In the next alcove, Blackwells were selling advance copies of Reflections, a collection of her essays and lectures that’s being published in a few days by David Fickling. I contributed an introduction, and also conducted an interview with Diana for the book just a few weeks before she died, so perhaps I’m not altogether impartial when I tell you to rush out and buy a copy. But you really should.

The event itself consisted mostly of short talks by those who knew Diana well, in her personal or professional life (and often both): her sisters and her sons; her editors and agent; fans, friends, translators...  There were also clips from the adaptations of her work: Miyazaki’s animated Howl’s Moving Castle, the BBC dramatization of Archer’s Goon, and even an excerpt from the ballet of Black Maria written by her nephew, Tom Armstrong. As is the way of such events, laughter and tears were never far away or far apart. In the end, I believe we approached Diana from enough angles that we managed by a process of - not triangulation, perhaps, but polygonization? - to conjure her, if in a fitful way like a Star Wars hologram. It was the kind of event where one thought, "I wish Diana could see this - she'd really enjoy it!"

We still have her books, but I’ll miss her. I’ll miss her, but we have her books.