The Broken Model, by Dawn Finch

I have on many occasions been outspoken about my belief that the cult of celebrity authors in the world of children’s publishing is harmful. I have explained why I think the current obsession with offering celebrities deals for publishing children’s books is bad for readers and for anyone purchasing books for young people. Now I want to explain why it is bad for authors and the industry as a whole.

It can not have escaped anyone’s attention that the supermarket and mainstream bookshop shelves are increasingly full of books “written” by celebrities. I use the word “written” in quotation marks because this is not an article about the relative merits of flaws of these books (and I have no desire to demean the work of my colleagues who are ghost writers). I'm also leaving aside the many excellent writers of comedy and tv who have made a professional transition into writing for young people. This article is about how the messy bun-fight for books by random celeb names and how it is hurting the children’s book industry as a whole.

Let me explain. To secure the “writing” of a celebrity the publisher offers an advance – an advance payment offered against future sales of the book. These advances are shrouded in secrecy, but it is safe to say that in the world of children’s authors’ incomes these celeb advances would be described as super-massive. The celeb advances that I know of are twenty or thirty times the rate that regular authors are getting, and many are way way more. Publishing houses are, of course, just another business at heart and they have a product that they need to sell and it is within their business interests to make that advance back. To make the advance back they need to sell as many copies of the celeb book as quickly as possible after publication. 

There are many ways to sell a book but the number one way of making sure you have lots of pre-orders and sales is to have maximum visibility. You can have the best book in the world with the finest and most beautiful illustrations and cover but if no one knows that book exists then no one will buy it. Children are not swayed by the latest chef or DJ publishing a book - in fact they literally could not care less. This means the marketing people have to sell not to children, but the adults - the holders of the purse strings. Publishers know this and that is why it’s not enough to just have a press release or a few tweets with the celeb’s book, you have to go all out. What you need to claw back a super-massive advance is a high-profile advertising campaign. You need huge posters on public transport, guest spots on tv shows, glossy ads in magazines, and you need to buy visible shelf space and to buy on to award lists – basically you need to throw a shed load more money at the book to make money back on the book. That's a big gamble.

I often hear people claim that celebrity high-profile books are good for the industry because they “get kids reading” and they have a “trickle-down” effect. I absolutely do not believe that and over the last three decades working with children’s books I have seen zero evidence of this.  I fail to see how the fact that a celeb author who has cost the publisher this super-massive advance and now also dominates their marketing budget can be of any benefit to any author other than the celeb themselves. Frankly I’m not convinced that most of these super-massive advances earn out at all. Evidence for this is that the publishing industry constantly scoping around for the next celeb to gamble on and to repeat this broken model over and over again.

It breaks my heart that month after month, year after year, I see the most extraordinary books for young readers fail to get the attention they deserve. There are some outstanding books published by authors of true talent, authenticity, originality and skill and yet these will probably never find their way into the hands of your children. The cold fact is that if you pass a supermarket or post office shelf, or if you’re on the underground, or switch your telly on to a tea time chat show you are only ever going to see the same books by the same small pool of celebrity authors. 

When celebs started to see children’s books as a kind of easy cash-cow every reader, children’s author, and book buyer lost something. What we lost was choice and variety and in its place we have an industry that is drifting ever closer to being a glossy and homogenised pastiche of what it should be. Instead of shelves full of limitless variety we have an industry becoming dependent on the soulless repetition of this super-massive celeb advance + intense claw back broken model.

There are still those who claim that the reason professional authors protest about the cult of celebrity authors is jealousy, but that’s not the case with the authors I know. Yes, of course they’d like a more level playing field and would like a fair share of the money and the marketing budgets, but it’s far more than that. They can see how this intense focus on celebs limits not only their opportunity to create and write but also limits choice for young readers as the celebs muscle in on all the available shelf space.

Authors want the industry to be better, and to do better. They write for children because they believe in what they do, and because they want children to have access to a wide range of books from all walks of life and expressing all voices. They want children to have the very thing that inspired them to become writers in the first place in that they want them to stumble across an extraordinary book that speaks to them and inspires them and lives in their hearts for the rest of their lives.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Dawn Finch (aka Dawn McLachlan) is an author, poet and former children's librarian with 30 yrs experience working with children's books and reading. She is a former chair of the Society of Authors Children's Writers and Illustrators Group, and a former President of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

www.dawnmclachlan.com

I'VE GOT A LITTLE LIST by Penny Dolan

Wishing you all a Happy May Day and a bright month ahead. despite all.

Sorry to mutter, but I am not well, It could be a summer cold, an attack of the virus or simply a lack of sleep. This leaves me feeling in an unusually grumpy mood - a fit of the Lezards one might call it, assuming one reads The New Statesman -   and with an Awfully Big Blog Adventure post to write.

So, in this somewhat negative state, I made myself a little list, which comes with the following question - and  I'm not sure I know the answer.

IF THIS IS THE LITTLE LIST,  

OF WHAT IS IT A LIST?

Titles in the Comments below.

 

1. Live close to one or more of the three main points of the golden triangle: London, Oxford or Edinburgh. (Brighton & Cambridge also included.)

2. Own a friendly, photogenic & biddable pet, preferably a dog.

3. Have a good supportive network and a fine sociable nature.

 

4. Appear youthful, attractive, interesting and, prefebrably, fit or thin. 

5. Have access to another income when necessary.

6. Have lived an unusual life and/or possesss interesting  skills.

7. Be comfortable & adept with using modern media.

8. Have links to someone within the creative industries and/or an academic circuit..

 

9. Be amusing, entertaning,  charming and possibly musical.

 

10. Moreover, from teachers' and librarian's frequent RFP nominations, be male.  

  

What do you think? Does any title leap out at you?

Is there anything l forgot?

However, perhaps I should also add:

 Be in possession of a thick skin, a collection of good workable ideas, a persistent work pattern, supportive friends and family, health, strength and some time you can call your own. Plus resilience, hope and gratitude.

Have a great month! 

 Right. I'm off to find the Lemsip once more. Other meds are available.

Bye!

Penny Dolan

@pennydolan1

Time for a Writing Reality TV Show by Tamsin Cooke

At the moment, life is rather uncertain and difficult. Therefore I decided to have a little fun with my post this month. And so I imagined a writing reality TV programme/game show.  Please note - I don't intend this to be real.

Imagine ten children’s authors – picture book to young adult - battling it out to reign supreme!!! 

Ten authors would stand at an individual high desk in a semi-circle. ( 2 metre spaces between them of course!) Laptops, coffee and cake on each station. The gameshow host would stand at the front between two - YES two, not just one - spinning wheels. (No expense spared in this production!)

On the left spinning wheel would be the categories: Picture book, Early readers, Middle Grade, Teen and Young Adult.

And on the right spinning wheel would be the following: Horror, poetry, fantasy, historic, fairytale, romance, realistic, science fiction and graphic novel.

Can you see where this is going?

The host spins the left wheel. The audience, leans forward, clasping their knees in anticipation. An age range is chosen. The host spins the right wheel and the genre is selected. Then the authors have SIXTY MINUTES to create either a full story or extract. For picture books, early readers and graphic novels, illustrators could be brought in. 

The hour is up. The authors must read their work aloud and the illustrators show their masterpieces.  Three judges give their responses to the stories. Then the phonelines are open. Twenty-four hours for the public to judge their favourite story. 

The next day, the results are in. The tension is palpable. Starting from the top, the winner of the round is announced. The author whose story got the most votes is given a pen with a spinning wheel on the clicky bit. The audience goes wild.

The rest of the authors find out if they are safe or not. Finally the gameshow host names the bottom two. To stay in, these authors must complete a challenge. The winner moves onto the next round, while the loser is eliminated.

Challenges for the bottom two include: 

• Together they create a story, taking turns to say one word at a time. Any hesitation or ums – they lose!
• They’re given a topic and have one minute to say a story aloud. The best one wins.
• They become a character from the story they just wrote. Interviewed by the judges, the most authentic character wins.
• They  fight a tiger and the one not to die, wins.

Then it would be round two with nine authors. This would play out until the final week when only two contestants remain. It would be the ...

No spinning wheels are needed here. The two finalists get to choose their own genre AND intended age range. The audience can hardly contain themselves. 

There's a big golden envelope which the host slowly rips opens to reveal the topic of today's story. The authors have SIXTY MINUTES to create a masterpiece. Illustrators can be brought in if required.

When the hour is up, they read out the stories.  This time the vote is split 50/50 between the public and the judges. OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!

The next day, the winner is revealed. Their prize: a publishing deal AND a sculpture of a spinning wheel for the mantlepiece. Oh yes!!!

I'm still trying to work out what can happen while the authors are writing to make it a teensy bit more interesting for the audience. Any ideas, please leave in the comments below. I might even send you a pen with a spinning top as a thank you. Or you could become a contestant!!!!

Tamsin Cooke

Author of The Scarlet Files Series and Stunt Double Series

Website: tamsincooke.co.uk
Twitter: @TamsinCooke1 

You’re only the auth… By Steve Way

I am an experienced primary school teacher and over many years I visited lots of schools in my role as an author. For this reason, a few years ago, I felt qualified to make several suggestions over the phone to my publisher about how a series of books could be marketed in primary schools. This clearly irked my publisher and in a forthright manner she declared: ‘But Steve you’re only the auth…’


She then checked herself mid-sentence and I seem to recall went on to explain about how as the publishers they would deal with marketing their way. To be honest I wasn’t really listening at that point. I was wondering ‘did she really say…’


Now I know what I think she was going to say. Being a creative bunch maybe you could make some suggestions? In her defence I’ve wondered if she might have been going to say; ‘But Steve you’re the only authority we have on 9^th Century Babylonian sub-cultures!’ having in a temporary aberration (possibly brought on by the stress of dealing with demanding authors) mistaken me for their expert on the subject. Maybe she was about to phone him or her when I interrupted her with my unappreciated advice. In my case, I’m afraid I know nothing about Babylonian behaviour – where there Babylonians in the 9^th Century? I look forward to any scenarios that occur to you as alternatives. Answers on a blog post please.


As it turned out this same series of books was later licenced to a New Zealand publisher. My UK publisher never bothered telling me this until I received copies of the books. On first unwrapping them this was a pleasant surprise and I still appreciate receiving as few pennies from Australia and New Zealand from time to time. (What particularly appeals to me is the thought that although I’m not working very hard, I am effectively working on the other side of the world while I’m asleep!) However, when I investigated further the enjoyment I got from this unexpected achievement became somewhat tarnished. You see the antipodean publishers had decided to adapt the books for their market without consulting me – the author! (After all, why would they? I’m only…)


Let me share with you a seemingly irrelevant fact. It seems that in Australia and New Zealand people don’t eat ‘lollies. Apparently in this part of the world they refer to them as ‘ice blocks’. As I say, generally an innocuous difference… unless you’ve written a poem for children repeatedly using ‘lolly’ as one of the line-ending rhymes. I imagine you can see straight away that ‘ice block’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘lolly’… or more significantly any of the words that do. To make matters worse, whereas in one case they just replaced one word with the other, which was horrible enough, in other places they’d tried to re-write the poem in order to substitute one for the other and in doing so disrupted the rhythm of the words, which I’d worked so hard on to make run smoothly and evenly! As well as being upset and unable to understand why they didn’t ask me for some help with rewriting this piece, I can’t help wondering whether antipodean teachers think I’m a terrible poet! Some of the other books contained some mathematical challenges that the publishers also decided to change for absolutely no obvious reason – no cold confections were referred to! – and manged to get the maths completely wrong. They probably think I’m an awful mathematician as well as an abominable poet ‘down under’!


Another publisher made a horrifying mistake, though to be fair they corrected it as soon as I pointed it out. Not before they’d brought out the first edition in the US though. It was a non-fiction book about space. I’d written something along the lines of ‘Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are solid planets and Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are gas planets.’ In the book this should have covered three lines of text but the central line was missing. The book hence knowledgably declared that; ‘Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are gas planets.’ Now I probably can’t visit America without embarrassment either as there they’ll think I’m a terrible scientist!


My publishers have turned me into a nincompoop! It must be because I’m only the auth…



Recently published; ‘Spell Binding Stories KS1’ Stories and poems to aid the learning of spelling – and make it fun!

The Ahlbergs - favourites! Hilary Hawkes

June mustn't go by without remembering that it’s the birthday month of the amazing Allan Ahlberg.   

So Happy (albeit belated) 80^th birthday Allan Ahlberg!

My children adored Janet and Allan’s gorgeous stories and illustrations when they were young and the books were part of the staple book diet in their primary classrooms. Everywhere we went – day trips, visits to grandparents, holidays – an Ahlberg book came with us. I’ve still got some of them – including a slightly worn out cassette tape of Burglar Bill!

Burglar Bill, The Jolly Postman series and Funny Bones are just two of a long, long list  of  books the pair created and, since Janet’s death from cancer in 1994, Allan has added countless more titles with other illustrators.

It’s partly the brilliantly imaginative, humourous style that made and still makes the Ahlberg stories so successful and popular. They must be jointly responsible for opening up the world of books and reading to thousands upon thousands of children. But you may be surprised to know that  Allan himself grew up in an almost bookless home. The Bucket is about his childhood in the 1940’s Black Country.

So before June is out let’s name our favourite Ahlberg books: mine include Each Peach, Pear, Plum and, of course, Burglar Bill. What about you?

2013 article about Allan Alhberg

Hilary Hawkes

The book group - Hilary Hawkes

I’ve been invited to join a book group – a real life one as opposed to an online/facebook group.

Now, I have a confession to make. While I consider myself a true bookaholic I’m not all that keen on too much reading to dissect and pontificate at great length with others. If I like a book then I like it and the reasons can vary. If I don’t like one then I usually find out in the first few chapters and either hobble to the end or, in extreme cases, abandon altogether. I’m probably a typical reader.

I’ve read books that have won prizes and thought to myself: “This won? Really?” And I’ve read some lovely self-published books and wondered why on earth a commissioning  editor somewhere didn’t snap up such a promising author.

But these are just my views. Someone else will read the same book and think something entirely different. That’s the way it should be. So book groups where everyone has a different view sounds interesting, but would it really enhance my enjoyment of reading? Would it turn my dream past-time into a bit of a chore? Looking at the list of Suggested Books For The Group I shudder at the length of some of those hefty tomes. They really aren’t books I would choose to read.

Perhaps my hesitancy about joining is due to having studied English Literature at A’level and degree level many years ago. Set texts and dissecting of little bits of them reminds me of exams and assessments.  And while I always knew exactly what I thought of a book – and why- I was often reluctant to have my say amongst others who seemed to be much better at analysing and deciding "what the author meant”.

I've always got my own personal TBR pile of fiction (adult novels and children's books) and non-fiction. I occasionally review books and really enjoy that and I love to talk with other children's authors about children's books.

I think all authors are readers first. But I wonder what proportion of book lovers who are also children’s writers are members of adult book groups. Have you tried book groups and what was your experience?  I’d love to know.

Hilary Hawkes

Stories and lasting impressions - Hilary Hawkes

Was there a story you heard as a young child that left a lasting impression on you?

Some books/stories do that - and can trigger memories and feelings many years later.

It's National Story Telling Week at the moment. Some time ago I was trying to recall the title and author of a story my mother used to read to me about a bear who lived beside a singing stream. For some reason, one day, it stopped singing and the bear’s mission was to find out why and make the stream happy again. I remember a feeling of total awe and concern as I listened to this story and watched the pictures as the pages turned. There was a happy ending, of course.

There is something reassuring and settling about happy endings – knowing the antagonists will get their come-uppance and that protagonists will win through their struggles and learn something wonderful along the way too.

Those early stories probably shape the way children begin to think about the world and situations around them. They might have a subtle teaching effect and convey nurturing messages about kindness or perseverance and good versus bad.

Many of my friends who love reading say the stories that were their favourites when they were very young became favourites with their own children or grandchildren too.  Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Paddington, not to mention those timeless fairy tales that seem to stick through the generations.

Having worked as an early years teacher it was easy to spot the books that were almost certainly going to become the ones remembered. The ones that got picked by the children over and over and barely needed reading because they recalled most of the words themselves! The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Kipper, Dr Zeus, The Gruffolo.

Two years ago an article by Telegraph reporters was published on the “100 Best Children’s Books of All Time”.  Whether a list of books is best may be a matter of opinion, but they meant bestselling, and titles that withstood changes in fashions. You can see the list here 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/childrens-books/100-best-childrens-books-of-all-time/

 

Some of my own childhood favourites are there (sadly not the bear story).  We’ve all got other favourites that would make it on to our own personal “Best” list. Mine would have to include The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, Veronica at The Wells by Lorna Hill and Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

What favourite childhood stories all do is make children feel something important and special and good. They can transport you somewhere exciting. They can be windows into situations or other places and lives, they can shine light on things we need to discover - but in a gentle way.  They can leave children feeling secure or with a sense of justice being done. Basically, they make a contribution to helping children develop secure foundations for life.

For children’s authors those books that were favourites are additionally important.They are probably the stories that introduced us to the magic of story worlds and perhaps we even absorbed something about how stories worked without even realising. That’s not to say it doesn’t take a lot of work to make our own stories work too of course. But, maybe, remembering what we felt when we heard or read our early favourites gives writers that first desire to write.

For me the story of the bear and the singing stream was one of the stories that caused me to fall in love with children’s stories. And it is a love that has never left me.

Credit:Klara Viskova/shutterstock with persmission

How about you? Which books read early in life, or stories heard, left a lasting impression - or even influenced your own writing?

Hilary

Inappropriate Content? - Eloise Williams

For this month’s blog piece, I’ve been chatting with the wonderful Tamsin Rosewell of Kenilworth Books.

I’ve been overwhelmed by her support for Gaslight - my latest book - and truly delighted by the window display she created for it. As a result of a conversation about Gaslight, and books in general, she has given me this fascinating account of her thoughts on age recommendations and how books are categorised.

 

Inappropriate Content?

Do we have a section in the shop labelled ‘Great Books for 8 Year-Olds’? No. It would make our lives easier (if far less interesting) if we could answer confidently the regularly asked question: ‘is this book ok for an 8 year old?’.  Age recommendations on books are as unhelpful as they are helpful. They can put adults off reading – yes, I’ve had a couple of adults chat to me happily about Gaslight having read my review, they get all excited ..and then say ‘oh, no I don’t want to read a children’s book.’ They can also put children off reading: ‘I think my daughter would love this, but it says 8+ and she’s 14 – she’ll think it is a bit childish.’ And they can worry parents: ‘My son is a great reader but he’s only 7 – I think a book for a 12 year old might be a bit grown up for him!’.

I was 21 years old when Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights was first published, and I was asked to read and review it. The trilogy questions everything from the existence and benevolence of a God, to the nature of love, friendship, death and sexuality. These books explore the greatest questions of human existence. Northern Lights was handed to me as a book for older children. The best-selling book on the adult’s list then was ‘Does My Bum Look Big in This?’ I remember thinking at the time that if the children are being invited to think about the great questions of philosophy and the adults are wondering what their bums look like, I’d rather read the books being written for kids. And, at 43, I still generally read the books labelled as for children and young adults. I loved Gaslight, and I’d recommend it for any adult who loves a great story that is well-researched and well-written.

 

Eloise writes books, and I sell them. We stand at opposite ends of a bridge between two worlds. Beneath our bridge plummets a mysterious and terrifying gorge called ‘publishing’. At some point down below us, in the darkness, her book was given an age recommendation, and by the time it made its way to me, it was labelled as ‘suitable for ages 8+’.  When I was a kid I can't remember any book having an age recommendation - my 1978 copy of Red Shift by Alan Garner has no indication of an age on the cover. There is nothing to indicate the sex scenes in the book - even when other books by Garner are classics of children’s fiction. And all those Judy Bloom books in the 1980s about periods and boys and sex, I’ve no recollection of an age written on them. It recommended by hushed discussion from 12-year-old to 12-year-old.

 

 

When someone comes in to the bookshop and asks for ideas for a book for a daughter or niece, the question I have learned to ask is ‘what sort of girl is she?’ And the answer is as varied as the books that are then chosen. I’ve met 12 year olds who would struggle to read many of the books with 8+ written on the back; and I know 7 year olds who already have a passion for Dickens. My 12-year-old niece was terrified by Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse (which I think is the sweetest, funniest little book in the world) and yet I meet 8 year olds who will read Skulduggery happily. Skulduggery makes an interesting study: the first four novels are fine for the 9+ recommendation they have (just), but when the fifth one came out my colleague and I agreed that, if that were a film, it would be rated 18 for the sheer level of horror in it – it is far more horrific than, for example, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. So why does it still get classed as a children’s book?  But then again, many kids are fine with that.

 

With so much depending on the child, why do we put age recommendations on books? Are we assuming that there is certain content that is not appropriate for a 7-year-old but that is fine for an 8-year-old? I’m not convinced that this is about parental control – after all there are much more violent and sexualised scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy (rated 12a) than in most of the adult thrillers on our bookshelves. If is isn’t that, then are we assuming that the language or intellectual skills of a 12-year-old are markedly different from those of an adult? Many of the trend-driven popular books on our adult fiction shelves are far lower in intellectual content, erudite language and complex structure than those on our Children’s or YA shelves . I've just been reading (and I adored!!) Chris Priestley's Tales of Terror; the first in the series weaves in and out of the Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories written by MR James. I know MR James' work inside out as I've been reading it since I was 11, and Chris Priestley’s language is no less sophisticated, no easier, no less complex than James' of the turn of the century. Children study 19^th century literature at school from the age of 11 – so we can’t fairly accuse them of having less sophisticated language skills than many adults. Children certainly have different language skills from adults though; I’ve noticed that as a collective, children are more comfortable reading colloquial language or dialect than adults.

 

I’m always curious to know if an author thinks that he or she is ‘a children’s writer’ or just a writer. Authors tell me different things; some say that, as far as they are concerned they are writing a book, the discussion about an age recommendation come later. Others are very sure they are writing a children's book from the outset. Many have told me that they write what they want and then the publisher or editor tells them if it is all suitable for an age range.

 

Often, the only thing that seems to separate a children’s novel from an adult’s novel is the age of the protagonists involved. One writer told me that he’d lowered the age of the protagonists in his books, from his original intended plan, to fit in with the idea that these were going to be children’s books. Are we saying that adults don’t want to read books in which the protagonists are younger than them? If this is the case then why do we stop when we get to YA age? I remember my mother insisting that Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ was ‘a woman’s book’ and that no 16-year-old girl could possibly hope really to understand it. Many of the adult’s book groups with which we work at the bookshop are very clear that they are not in the least interested in anything with sexual content, that they don’t want slushy love stories and above all they cannot abide violence and bad language in a novel. If only I could encourage them to choose a wonderful book called Gaslight, labelled as for 8+!

 

We should discuss too who buys the books labelled as ‘YA fiction’; even though its quantity and indeed its quality is very high, it is very far from being the best-selling section of the shop. And yet, on those shelves are some of the most important novels of our times – I’d count Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman and Phoenix by SF Said as two of the most important and defining books of our age. Have we really decided that these books are for young people – or are we signalling something different when we label a book as ‘YA’. I think we are indicating that these books are the ones in which anything and everything is discussed openly. These books are challenging and exciting. YA authors are fearless; there is nowhere to which they are not prepared to go. But labelling books as ‘YA’ for some reason terrifies parents and grandparents who are buying a book for a teenager – we’ve had older adults look at the books in the YA section and say ‘Oh, no I think I’d like to buy her a nice book.’ We don’t have a section for ‘nice books’. The majority of YA fiction sold in our shop is to men and women who are 25+. Is just my small corner of England in which Young Adults weren’t the main readers of YA fiction? Out of curiosity I asked a director of the Booksellers Association about the profile of people who were buying YA fiction. He sighed a little and then said: ‘that is a very great mystery indeed.’  An accurate answer, but not a very helpful one.

 

When new stock arrives, we manage to put it all on to the shelves without even looking for an age recommendation. I assume therefore, that having age recommendations on books serves something closer to an administrative purpose. A neat categorising of writing. A plan for publicity. A price point. A cover design. A responsible web-listing. I can’t really see how such specific age recommendations help anyone. They don’t really help booksellers; and if they don’t help me sell the books then they don’t help the authors either. They don’t help parents, and they don’t help children. So who do they help?

Tamsin Rosewell is an historian, broadcaster and bookseller; she has worked for Independent Bookshop, Kenilworth Books, in Warwickshire, for nearly ten years. The bookshop itself has existed for 50 years. When she is not in the bookshop she makes radio arts, history and music documentaries

Visit Kenilworth Books at www.kenilworthbooks.co.uk

Follow Tamsin on Twitter @AutumnRosewell and @KenilworthBook

 

 

The picture books that made me

I've been overcome by waves of nostalgia.

The first whiff was sent floating under my nose by Daniel Hahn (editor of the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature) - whose recent top 10 of forgotten children's classics included the delightful Fattypuffs and Thinnifers by Andre Maurois with charming Fritz Wenger illustrations. This was a top favourite of mine as a child - I think I liked the pictures and the entirely logical but surreal scenario.

Fattypuffs and Thinifers marry (Fritz Wenger)

Then last weekend, the Guardian invited a selection of contemporary authors to list the children's books which made them, and I was nearly overcome by the rosy fumes (not in an unpleasurable way). It's always interesting to read these, because as we know, the books we read as children exercise some of the most formative influences on our imagination - if by no means conclusive ones. Golden classics from the canon dominated, from Andrew Laing's Fairy Tales (the late Ruth Rendell) to Arthur Ransom's Peter Duck (Tom Stoppard.) Of course, that almost renders the exercise irrelevant. If you're trying to divine the secret reading which has created a fine modern literary mind and only discover that they liked Alice in Wonderland, it's hardly a startling, distinctive or unique piece of bibliography.

The edition of Peter Duck I read

This is my problem with nostalgia. Often we rewrite things to suit modern tastes or what we think other readers will want to read, or identify with. I'm just as bad. In schools, when children ask, "What was your favourite book as a child?", I too often give them the answers they have probably heard before, were maybe even hoping for. The Narnia books, Stig of the Dump, The Hobbit, The Silver Sword - all great books, but chances are they are all titles so well known that they are bound to have crossed the paths of most keen young readers in the last fifty years.

Stig of the Dump (illustrated Edward Ardizzone)

I'm delighted to keep on reinforcing their appeal, they're great books.

But of course, there were so many other influences on my imagination. Namely, some books which all too rarely get chosen as favourites by Serious Living Writers, and that's picture books.  Yes, I loved the characters and adventures and drama and humour of those more canonical titles, but the books that blew my child mind and implanted haunting images there forever? The books that gave me a sense of the limitless, dream manufacturing capability of the subconscious?

Books like the German Ra Ta Ta Tam - The strange story of a little engine, by Peter Nickl, illustrated by Binette Schroder, the tale of a lonely train traversing Dali-esque landscapes filled with obscure symbolism and mystery.

Ra Ta Ta Tam

Or King Tree by Fiona French, a dark and unusual piece about the Sun King's courtiers dressed as trees, competing for favour. I had no idea what it meant or was about. The people looked weird, the costumes were freakish - but sumptuously and intensely illustrated by French:

The Orange Tree from King Tree

 Even It's A Dog's Life by Mark Stern, which uses simpler and more conventional cartoon style illustrations, still gripped me as a child with its big empty frames, more picture and space than dialogue and words - which left so much room for the imagination to invent and fill in the gaps.




In the end, these are just three of the many picture books that I happened to read and re-read and re-read when I was a boy. I mention them now because they are the ones that have survived various culls over the years. They don't have the canonical appeal of great stories such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They aren't as genre breaking as Alice in Wonderland once was. Their qualities are not charm and a classic English feel.

They are books which all freaked me out a little when I was younger. The intensity of the artwork, the inherent sadness behind so much of the images, the disquieting stillness and otherness. Like comics, they teach the basis of all storytelling - piquing the curiosity. But they also did something more for me. Words and longer books may have taught me so much about everything from empathy to how to build a treehouse, but picture books give most children their first glimpse of beauty. They may not inculcate  a writing style, but there is no better introduction to the developing mind of the power of art to astonish and disturb.

Piers Torday

@PiersTorday

www.pierstorday.co.uk

Book Fair Nightmares - Clémentine Beauvais

The Paris Book Fair has just ended and, on the French closed Facebook group for authors that I'm a part of, there's been some nostalgic recollections of cult moments from book fairs.

By 'cult moments', I mean those moments when you'd really like to... not be at the book fair.

Because, of course, book-signing is HUGE FUN, especially the French way (2 days on end, for 3 to 5 hours at a time with a lunch break)... You know that time when you're behind your table and you've been signing for hours and your hand hurts like hell? No? Me neither. 

A Book Fair

Here are the 'classics', that everyone's had to endure:

- 'Hi!'
[You, hopeful]: 'Hi!'
'Where's the toilet?'

- 'Hi!'
[You, still hopeful]: 'Hi!'
'Do you know if [famous author] is coming?'

- 'Can you sign this book for my son?'
'I can't, it's not mine, it's Harry Potter.'
'Oh, it doesn't matter, just sign it, will you?'
(alternative version: 'Oh, don't worry, J.K. Rowling will never know!')

- 'Can you draw a little something?'
'I can't, I'm a writer.'
'Can't you try?'

Book fairs are stressful and awkward. You're there with your piles of books, and people drift by, and conspicuously avoid looking at you in the eye when they pick up your book and decide that they DEFINITELY do NOT want it. Or, that they do NOT want their child to have it.

'Put that down!!! Can't you tell it's a girls' book?'

I could have killed that woman, but I only had books and books make terrible weapons.

Sometimes they say, 'I'll have a look around and come back'.
--> HA no you won't.

Sometimes you manage to talk to them a bit and try to handsell your own book (epitome of cringe):

'So it's about three teenage girls, it's a road trip but kind of a maturity tale too [dammit, in which pocket of my brain did I put my elevator pitch?]'
The Parent: 'Hmm. Do you have something a bit like Cherub? My daughter only reads things like Cherub. Do you have a saga? Your books aren't very big. She only likes big books.'

Life is just great right then.

Oh and that:

'NOOOOO I don't want the lady to sign the book!!!' 'But my darling, it's the only reason we bought it!'

There's also those book fairs when you're sitting next to Big Name Author so you kind of become the crowd control person for their line. Don't push! Sir, you're skipping the queue. It's that way. Yes, he's here until ten past. No, he's run out of that picturebook, but there's this one too, which is great too.  Wait, why am I promoting his picturebooks? He hasn't even talked to me!

ZOMG Big Name Author is talking to me!
'Hey, Capucine... Clémence... Célestine... whatever your name is, do you have another Sharpie?'

Then there's the times when you're sitting next to a sleazeball of an author in mid-life crisis who spends most of the very empty afternoon giving outfit suggestions.

'You see, Clementine, this morning I was looking at girls in the harbour and I realised I really like nude back tops. Wouldn't you wear a nude back top?'

How many more hours of this again?

The kids who want you to sign their school diary. Their pencil-cases. Their hands. A Post-it note. Because they are 100% cute, you do it, dying a little bit inside. 'Don't you want to buy the book?' you ask feebly. So feebly that they don't hear you at all and go spend their book voucher on a Frozen book of stickers.

'things we sign'

That woman who stared at me for ten seconds. Ten seconds is a long time to be stared at. And then:
'How old are you?'
(With 'tu', not 'vous'. T'as quel âge, toi? Written language can't convey the disdain.)

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But then there's...

Those book fairs which are right by Lake Geneva or the Atlantic ocean.

Those book fairs when kids come back to meet you because they've read the books and studied them in class and you went to their school for a visit.

bonus point if their face is actually an emoticon

 

 

 

 

 

Authors you meet and who are NOT huge sleazeballs and who make these long afternoons and mornings seem very short.

Insa Sané

Zad et Didier

And who are talented illustrators, and play the ukulele, and are actually Keith Richards.

François Place

Nathalie Tual

Keith Richards. Maybe.

And people who bring you pastries or coffee purely out of sympathy GOD I LOVE THESE PEOPLE THANK YOU 

There's always an 'end-of-summer-camp' atmosphere when book fairs are over. We say goodbye, thank you for the good times, I still owe you a drink, really nice to have met you, finally, really nice to see you again, looking forward to when that book you were telling me about comes out. See you soon at another book fair, maybe! No doubt. But probably in a year or two. You'll have had that baby by then... yes, hopefully! Will the next book fair be as disastrous? I never want to do another book fair. Will the next book fair be as amazing? I don't want to go home! How many books did you sell? ... Ha, me neither.

It's exhausting, hilarious, terrifying and nightmarish. The next one for me is in less than two weeks' time. Can't wait.

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Clementine Beauvais writes in French and English. She blogs here about children's literature and academia.