Glad to be Hopeful by Anne Booth

 I think that being a children's writer is a great help for me as an adult, because the discipline of finding something to be hopeful about is essential for our job. We shouldn't be twee, or superficial, or bury our heads in the sand, but I do think we have to find something hopeful for our child readers. 

As soon as I write this I can think of arguments against it - what about funny books which have exaggeratedly negative endings, or the fact that some children find scary books thrilling and comforting, maybe because they remind them that real life isn't all that bad ? Maybe even the presence of humour is enough to give an escape from a difficult present and let hope in, and the thrilling scary books do have hope in that they have heroes and heroines who survive. Beautiful illustrations and typeface and design  can also provide something deeply uplifting and  positive apart from the narrative, but as a story teller, I do think the narrative itself is very important.

All  I know is that I am a bit biased about hope in children's books, because as a child I certainly had a life and a personality where I really needed comfort and hope (and humour and escapism )  in my stories, and I have spoken with teachers who work with looked after children, and they say that they look for stories which are hopeful and comforting, as the last thing the children they work with need is to be re immersed imaginatively  in traumatic situations with no happy ending. I would need to do more research, so please take this as a prompt for thought rather than an essay. I know that there is a way of looking at stories in books as mirrors or windows. Mirroring narratives help us see ourselves and our place in the world, and windows help us see others' lives and develop empathy. I still think that in both those models, for both adult and child readers, but especially for child readers, we still need to have Hope, especially in these days, and as a writer, I think it helps us to put Hope in our narratives.

I remember some years ago  reading  the present Children's Laureate, Frank Cottrell Boyce, saying that there was a need for more Utopian fiction, for imagining better futures, better societies, and as a writer I love that idea, for my own self, not only the children I write for. I have to live in the world and in the worlds I write, and personally, it helps me to  put Hope into my stories, so that after working on a story with Hope in it,  I can put down my pen or close my laptop and  look back into the world I live in, and recognise in 'real life'  the Hope which always existed but which rolling traumatic world news makes hard to find sometimes. These days there are just too many bad news stories about, but it helps me to remember (and I think it is essential for children and many adults to be taught)  that even the news is written - that we are getting narratives which serve the narrators - and hateful or hopeless narratives are no more true than relentlessly positive, head-in-the-sand ones.  There is a sweet spot where we recognise that the world is full of good and bad things, and that there definitely ARE bad things, (which as children's writers, if we need to present them, we must present in age appropriate ways) but fundamentally, love is stronger than the bad things, and endures. That's the happy ever after bit, the thing we hope for, because we know deep down that is true.

So I have to get on now - my own hopeful story is that I am on a part-time MA in Children's Book Illustration. I had to take a year off for various reasons, but I am back on the course now, and it really is giving me Hope to be studying alongside the other students, and to be immersed in such a wonderful world. I am also  illustrating a picture book at the moment, and I hope very much that anyone who reads it  feels more hopeful at the end.  I must go and do some work, as I only have two days before I present it again at our weekly tutorials, and I have to hope that it will be good enough by Wednesday! 

I hope everyone has a good day.

Just a quick note... from Sue Purkiss

 At the moment, the 5th doesn't have a regular inhabitant - so I thought I would slip in very briefly, mostly to commend to you yesterday's thought-provoking post from Ciaran Murtagh. In it, he considers how writing stories for children - stories which embody values such as hope, kindness, empathy: stories in which good people ultimately win - can be balanced against the horrific events we see being rolled out in Ukraine. How can we insist that Right will always prevail over Might, when we are getting constant evidence via our phones and television screens that the reverse is, at the moment, true?

In the comments on Ciaran's piece, Anne Booth provides a link to an article by Frank Cottrell Boyce, the writer of the marvellous and uplifting opening sequence to the 2012 Olympics, in which he discusses the role of the arts in the context of that inclusive, joyous and exuberant portrayal of Britain, and of the very different Britain which came to the fore in the Brexit referendum. He cites a Roma woman, brought up in a series of orphanages in Switzerland, who overcame very difficult circumstances to lead a happy and successful life. 

She had grown up in Switzerland where - shockingly - Roma children were taken away from their parents on the thinnest of pretexts, then brought up in institutions where, supposedly, they would have a better chance of becoming valuable Swiss citizens. Mariella had been in thirteen different institutions, narrowly missed a lobotomy and had her own child confiscated. Yet when I met her she was an articulate, charming, outward-looking politically active, distinguished writer. I asked her about all that rebellion, the repeated expulsions … I asked her … how did you know there was something to rebel for? How did you know - growing up in this regimented institution where you were defined entirely by race - how did you know you were worth more? And she said said something I have never forgotten … it’s the thing that made me want to be a children’s writer … she said, I read Heidi.

There's so much in this article that struck a chord with me. If, as must surely be inevitable, you are feeling downcast at the moment, I would strongly recommend it. If I had to pick out one gem, it would be this: A book is not a learning resource. It's the knife that picks the lock of your isolation. It's a box of delights. Justification enough to keep on writing, even if, at the moment, in the shadow of what is happening, it seems like fiddling while Rome burns. It's not. It's really not.

Here's a link to the article, and thanks to Ciaran and Anne.

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Teen/YA reading group favourite books of 2017 by Savita Kalhan

Here’s my yearly round-up of some of my teen reading group’s favourite library books of 2017. The reading group ranges from ages 11 to 15 years old, and is a mix of boys and girls – with most of them reading three or four library books a month on top of any other reading they do. The kids are enthusiastic and love talking about the books they've enjoyed, books they would recommend, and books they haven't liked as much. They write review cards, which go up on on the teen reading group board in the library. 

In many ways it was a challenging year for us: the library was closed for two months while it moved premises, the catalogue of books available has diminished, with many books that are ‘missing’ not being replaced, and many books published in 2016 and 2017 not being bought for the library.

But, nonetheless, here is the list of some of my teen group's favourite books, in no particular order -

Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence

The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell

The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Beetle Boy by MG Leonard

Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven

Shadow Magic by Joshua Khan

Gorilla Dawn by Gill Lewis

      

Booked by Kwame Alexander

The Harder They Fall by Bali Rai

Phoenix by SF Said

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead

The Astounding Broccoli Boy by Frank Cottrell Boyce

We all like having a choice in what we read. Some of us can buy books, and some of us use the library. I would really like to see 2018 be the year which brings back more choice of books for kids, and for their availability to be better reflected on the book shelves. And there should be at least one copy of every teen and young adult book published in a year on the library shelves.

Don’t you agree?

SAVITA'S WEBSITE

These Island Stories - John Dougherty

Do you remember the Opening Ceremony? It’s a measure of its impact that I don’t have to say which one, or what it opened. You know what I’m talking about. For days - perhaps weeks - afterwards, the country seemed like a warmer, friendly place.

I don't have permission to use any photos of the Opening Ceremony.  So here instead is a picture of some cake, courtesy of Michael at www.foodimaging.co.uk

Of course, not everyone felt this way. Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens on several occasions derided it as ‘a social worker’s history of Britain’, a phrase which I found revealing in its oddness. Does Mr Hitchens believe that social workers don’t have a right to history, or that their history is somehow inferior to other people’s? Does he think that a person who spends his or her working life looking after the needs of others is somehow less worthy than someone who spends his working life writing opinions for a newspaper with a less than glorious history of bending the truth, not to mention supporting parties with less than pleasant ideologies?

It’s the sort of question that is all too pertinent in these days of Gategate, the scandal of the Government’s Chief Whip apparently calling a police officer a “pleb”. The whole row has that sense of “some people are better than others, not because of who they really are but simply because of their station in life”, which unpleasantly echoes Hitchens’s ‘social worker’ jibe. I’m reminded, as the row unfolds, of how the Opening Ceremony made me feel.

You see, I’m not the only one to have reported unaccustomed feelings of patriotism after watching the Opening Ceremony; and I think I know why. On previous occasions on which I’ve been asked to feel patriotic, the feelings were supposed to be stirred by things that, well, don’t stir me. I quite like the Queen, I suppose, but I don’t feel the country would necessarily be a worse place to live if someone else were our Head of State instead. I never think, “I love being British because we have an army and some big ships!” or “gosh, isn’t it great that we once sent emotionally damaged ex-public schoolboys out all over the world to impose their values on whatever cultures they found there!"

But what Danny Boyle and Frank Cottrell Boyce did, bless them, was to provide an alternative narrative of which I could feel proud. Free universal healthcare! Black people and white people having babies together and nobody even thinking it comment-worthy until that twerp Aidan Burley and, yes, the Daily Mail point it out! Creativity in writing and music and art! Children’s literature, for goodness‘ sake!

I suppose, really, that what it did for me - and this is hugely significant, considering that I grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - was to tell me: it’s okay to be British my way, whatever that means to me. If I want to prefer a social worker’s history over a right-wing pundit’s history, I can. It doesn’t make me a “pleb” who needs to ‘learn my place’.

So why am I mentioning this here, so long after it’s all over? Well, I just felt moved to point this out:

Literature, and perhaps particularly writings for children and teens, do this as well. Can you remember, during your childhood, reading something in a book and thinking, “But I do that, too!” or “That’s just how it feels!” or “So it’s not just me!”

I can. And the lesson of the Opening Ceremony is that that’s important. Enormously important. Children’s writers do many things, but one of the best things we do is to say to children: “You know - it’s okay to be you.”


John's website is at www.visitingauthor.com.
He's on twitter as @JohnDougherty8 
He will be appearing at the Cheltenham Comedy Festival on November 17th 2012.

His most recent books include:

Finn MacCool and the Giant's Causeway - a retelling for the Oxford Reading Tree
Bansi O'Hara and the Edges of Hallowe'en
Zeus Sorts It Out - "A sizzling comedy... a blast for 7+" , and one of The Times' Children's Books of 2011, as chosen by Amanda Craig

Out of the Ground Comes Light - Dianne Hofmeyr

We all saw it… the power of storytelling. 


Who will forget the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony with children being wheeled in on brightly lit hospital beds, winged bikes flying through the air reminding us of the magic of riding our first bicycle, floating trees, the chimney stacks rising from the ground, the Child Catcher and Voldemort versus Mary Poppins, Evelyn Glennie’s wild drumming, the Queen arriving with James Bond, J K Rowling reading an excerpt from Peter Pan, Kenneth Branagh as the engineer Brunel, speaking Caliban’s famous lines from The Tempest…  the explosion of story telling… the moments of glorious insanity, the pandemonium, the sense of celebration?

  

And as writers we have reason to celebrate when the scriptwriter for the ceremony was none other than 2004 Carnegie Medal winner for his debut, Millions, based on his own screenplay for the film of the same name whose novel, Framed, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Book of the Year as well as the Carnegie Medal and his 2009 novel Cosmic was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal… and who in 2011 was commissioned to write a sequel to the Ian Fleming children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which was published in October 2011 as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again –  Frank Cottrell Boyce (I wrote about him in a previous post when he was guest speaker at our CWIG Conference last year)

He says he stayed eerily calm watching the event with his wife and two of his seven children. Its clear that for the planning, he and Danny Boyle and the other designers shared things they loved about Britain – the Industrial Revolution, the digital revolution, the NHS, pop music, children's literature and genius engineers. He bought Danny a copy of Humphrey Jennings's astonishing book, Pandemonium and the show's opening section ended up being named Pandemonium. He added a few very personal touches to the evening, like using the motto of his old school, St Helens: Ex Terra Lucem – out of the ground comes light, for the idea of the Cauldron.

He is quoted as saying: ‘For me the evening was like a work of art – it’s complex like a great poem or painting and as a result people can take different things from it and react in different ways.’

Someone else said of the evening. ‘It was enchanted. And it belongs to all of us. We are secure enough in our traditions to play around with them.’ 


Yes it was brave... very brave... creative and wonderful... story telling at its best. And the magic of it is probably rightfully summed up by Caliban's lines from The Tempest:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.

www.diannehofmeyr.com