An Awfully Big Blog Adventure View RSS

Book Launch - Joan Lennon 4 Sep 4:30 PM (yesterday, 4:30 pm)

Book launches are a worry. Will anybody come? Will the venue sell enough books? Will I forget everything I know about my book and quite possibly my own name?

Mountain, Sea, Holiday, by Paul May 3 Sep 9:00 PM (2 days ago)

By the time this very short post is published I'll be somewhere in North-West Scotland. It's probably fifty years now since I first heard the poet, Norman McCaig reading a poem on the radio, and forty years since I wrote out one of his poems on an index card and pinned it to my noticeboard. It has been pinned to various noticeboards ever since, along with a couple of other items that have somehow survived.

Here is the fisherman's cottage on the shore at Diabaig in Torridon where I spent a week with a friend in 1993. We paid £30.

Then there is this little cutting from The Guardian from a similar era which I bring out from time to time when I want to show someone the wonderful possibilities of the language of football. 

But the poem is a different kind of thing:

Between mountain and sea 

September - and a Library I knew long, long ago. 1 Sep 3:01 AM (4 days ago)

At the foot of Jolly Butcher’s Hill was a busy crossroad, where long-gone tram rails were still embedded in the tarmac. On one corner was the almost-Art-Deco Wood Green Tube station, where a warm nicotine fug seeped out into the damp air.

Up to my elbows in flour by Sheena Wilkinson 28 Aug 7:30 PM (8 days ago)

This will be a short post because this week has found me mostly up to my elbows in flour. The reason? I am baking, not for a book launch this time, but for a charity coffee morning. 

current state of kitchen

One of my best friends, Susanne Brownlie, died recently from a brain tumour. It is most heartbreaking of course for her family, but the loss of a close friend is horrible: we lose  a shared language, an esoteric frame of reference, and a particular way of being ourselves. 

That frame of reference for us was books. Susanne and I met through our mutual interest in the Chalet School and that love was at the heart of our decades-long friendship. She was always my first reader; long before I was published we used to share our works-in-progress, and though I was the one who went on to be a professional writer Susanne was a fine writer too. In fact we collaborated on a Chalet School 'fill-in' story, Robin Heeds the Call, which was published in 2014 by Girls Gone By and before she died Susanne self-published her own historical novel, Courage to Love.

Susanne's novel, with cover design by Emma Pass

Our birthdays were a fortnight apart, and we always had a joint treat halfway between the dates (22 August and 4 September). Women of modest, bookish tastes, our  outings generally involved book-shopping, having a cuppa or (best of all) once visiting a litter of puppies which my sister had thoughtfully bred around the right time of year.

tea and chat

As this year's birthday approached I decided to do something in Susanne's memory, in aid of Marie Curie, the charity which gave her such wonderful care in their Belfast hospice for the last seven months of her life. I'd already done a couple of sponsored walks so I decided on a coffee morning. She would have been the first to offer to help. 

What has this to do with books, reading and writing? Not much perhaps. I started writing it mostly as an apology: I have been so busy baking (and cleaning!) that there's not much else on my mind -- apart from Dolly Parton, but I'm guessing that by Saturday everyone else will have had their say about the wonderful Dolly. 

Susanne, unlike Dolly (and me) was a very private person -- she would be mortified by this public post, but I think she would forgive me. I offer it not only as an excuse for having nothing more literary, but as a reminder that the friends we make through books -- and what is Awfully Big Blog Adventure if not friends made through books? -- are very much to be cherished. 

the dedication to Name upon Name (2015)

A Love letter to Reading 24 Aug 10:06 PM (12 days ago)

Since everybody reading this blog will be an avid reader themselves, I thought my little review of this book would fit right in. I loved this book.

Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm, about the joys of children’s literature, was a little overwhelming. That’s not a criticism; rather, she wrote in such detail about all the books she’d read as a child that my mind reeled at the detail she dived into. She seemed to have read every book written for children – in English – ever! And while I’d read a lot of them, I hadn’t read nearly as many as her – probably about a quarter actually - so had no frame of reference for most of her comments. 

(It did introduce me to Gwen Grant’s Private – Keep Out though, and for that I’ll be grateful for the rest of my days.)

Bookish: A Love Letter to Reading is – well, for me at least – far more accessible. Mainly because I’ve read just about all the books she writes about and so can involve myself more deeply in her thoughts and judgements. 

And it’s pure pleasure to discover them. She takes in everything from early YA, to set texts at school, to an English Lit degree at Cambridge, bonkbusters and bestsellers… Lucy Mangan likes to read! And her enthusiasm makes me want A) to run right out and ransack my nearest bookshop and B) take another crack at The Da Vinci Code. (Which I think is probably the worst-written book ever published, but which she continued reading, even when a snotty colleague at the Guardian wondered out loud why she was wasting her time on such rubbish. Because, she says, she was enjoying the story, and if that isn’t the definition of a good time with a book, what is?)

Lucy Mangan just likes to read, and Bookish is a loving, wonderfully entertaining tribute to doing just that.

Letters - a treasure trove. By Sue Purkiss 22 Aug 9:00 PM (14 days ago)

 Far back in the distant past, O Best Beloveds, there was a time before emails, before WhatsApp, before Messenger - before any of these things which we now rely on. And in that time, if you wanted to communicate with someone far away, you wrote a letter. If you were in the same country, that letter might arrive very quickly - the post then was very efficient. It had to be, because apart from telegrams and the telephone (land lines only, of course, no mobiles), it was pretty much the only means of communication. If the letter had to go abroad, of course, it took much longer.

Many people kept the letters which were most important to them - indeed, some people kept the vast majority of the letters they received, but they were more likely to be people in the public eye, who had an eye towards future memoirs and biographies.

In the later years of his life, my father knew that I was interested in his stories about his childhood and family and about his experiences during the war. So he gave me this old chocolate box, which contained a few old photographs, his army record book and that of my Uncle George, who was a rear gunner in the RAF and was shot down just before the end of the war - a tragedy, one among so very many. 

It also contained a number of letters from Dad's mother and some of his five sisters. The reason these letter survived is that they never reached him. This was because at the end of May 1940, he was part of the British Expeditionary Force to France, about 400,000 men, which was retreating with all possible speed towards Dunkirk, where they were hoping to be picked up by the navy and taken back to Britain. This was the famous effort, involving hundreds of small boats, which did indeed rescue the majority of the men. But not all. Many were killed, and others were captured before they ever got there. Dad was one of these, and he spent the rest of the war in prison camps in Poland.

But back at home, my grandmother and Dad's sisters had no idea of this. So they kept on writing letters, chatty in the case of his sisters, increasingly anxious in the case of Granny Course. And eventually - extraordinarily - these letters were not just chucked into the nearest bin: someone examined them, investigated, and some months later, returned them to their senders, stamped 'Addressee reported Prisoner of War'. Granny kept them, and years later, gave them to Dad, their intended recipient.

Dad with his company at the beginning of the war - he is sitting on the front row on the far right. He was in the RASC, the Royal Army Service Corps. I don't know how many of these survived the war.

There's a little side story to this. For months, in the chaos of war, no-one knew what had happened to Dad. At some point a telegram arrived back at home, saying that he was missing in action. My Aunt Connie intercepted it, and decided that Granny wasn't to be told: they would wait until they knew for certain whether he was alive or dead.

It's so moving to read these letters now, in the knowledge of what was happening in France. This is from a letter Granny wrote on the 15th of May, when Dad still had about ten days of freedom left. She is hoping that he will have leave before long.

...I have cleaned the house ready waiting to hear that quick step. I often fancy I hear you coming home early (in the) morning, so I do hope things won't be so long. It seems hard and furious now...

And then this one, written on the 25th, around the time that he was captured. She is obviously desperately worried, beginning:

Dear Bernard

    Do just let me know how you are as soon as possible, I know I am impatient... I am only wanting to know if you are well, and are quite alright...

And ending:

...if you are too tired I am sending you some ready addressed envelopes if you can only just say I am alright mam, that will suffice for your loving Mother/too anxious.

These letters were one of the many strands that fed into my book, An Ordinary War, which is very loosely based on Dad's experiences. I found, and still find, that image of my grandmother writing to her son, pausing and listening for his 'quick step', not knowing that she wouldn't see him again for five years, just so moving. If you'd like to read more, the book is available here.

Hunting the Generated Subject - by Rowena House 20 Aug 3:30 PM (16 days ago)

It’s the last lap, the final six weeks of a six-and-a-half year creative writing PhD, which, terrifyingly, has taken up (or, at least, often took over) one-tenth of my lifetime.

I’m line-editing and proof-reading at the moment, ten pages a day of an 80K manuscript, cut down from 87K at its longest. It’s mad to try to do both at the same time, but that’s how it’s turned out and by this stage I’m not questioning my process, just getting on with it.

Hopefully, I’ll have time to read it through again on the iPad in a different format as reformatting always seems to throw up those glaringly obvious typos that have slipped past me, oh, probably hundreds of times.

I’m getting all sorts of deja-vu with the comparable stage of editing The Goose Road, my debut for young readers. Like asking, where did I put that sentence I liked so much, and really worked? And, for goodness sake, what on earth were you on about there?

There’s also been a nice moment of circularity or closure this month. 

Right at the start of this project, when Arvon began online masterclasses during Covid lockdowns, I listened to author Hisham Matar recommending that we stay open creatively during our first drafts (which I’ve taken to mean over multiple drafts) so that we don’t get trapped by our original idea and fail to access our deeper level of intuitive invention.

That became a kind of mantra for this novel: stay open to whatever comes along. 

 

 

Then, on August 7th, an email came in from Writers.com, an American organisation which I often find useful and thank very much for all their inspiration. This email offered up a notion from poetry which struck a chord. The article is by Sean Glatch, whom I’ve quoted here before, and is titled, Writing Titles of Poetry: How to Title a Poem, which has a lovely internal rhythm, which I guess is the point.

Mr. Glatch quoted Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town, which he called ‘a great grounding in the craft and mindset of poetry writing’. To quote him quoting Mr. Hugo:

To Hugo, all poems have two subjects:

· The Initiating Subject: the topic, idea, or thing that led you into writing a poem.

· The Generated Subject: the subject that the poem discovers or was actually, secretly, about the whole time.

I really like this idea. It makes a whole lot of sense. For the work-in-progress, a seventeenth-century witch trial was the initiating subject, and the importance of writing to critical thinking is the generated subject.

Looking back, I realise I spent a lot of time in the early years trying to think up a generated subject, to plan it, to plot it, to do exactly what Hisham Matar said you shouldn’t do. It’s the theme thing, innit. We’re supposed to know it, but if it’s the storytelling that generates it, how can one plan it?

They say that writing a novel is new each time around. If there is another one in me, I’ll try very hard to remember this lesson and stop hunting for a theme and let it wade out of the story sea in its own good time.

All the best, everyone. Nearly there. 

 

A small step for me, potentially a giant leap for humanity - by Lu Hersey 18 Aug 3:30 PM (18 days ago)

Do you remember a time before Google and smart phones?  When people had typewriters or word processors to write with, and if you wanted to speak to someone at a distance, you had to call them on a landline? Research was done in libraries, which held so many books, there wasn't even room for a student cafe. People still respected creativity and the arts and no one used AI to write, produce art or music, or had GoogleMaps telling them where to go.

It honestly wasn't that long ago. The last twenty-five years has seen such a massive expansion of AI, we've all become accustomed to it. No one reading this would use it to write their books for them (hopefully!), but we live in a world where if you wanted to produce a readable manuscript from your idea in under ten minutes, you probably could. All thanks to AI's pirating of everything ever written by us. 

There's a rumour going around that AI centres burn books to stop us going back to print copies. Scary shades of Fahrenheit 451, and though it might sound like an urban myth, there's actually some truth to this rumour. Anthropic, a mega AI company with an 'AI assistant' they've named Claude (presumably to make him sound more user-friendly), is known to have sourced thousands of books, removed the spines to enable easy scanning, then pulped (I believe they call it 'recycled') all the pages. 

This has been public knowledge for over a year, but people only started getting seriously worried when another massive company called ISBNdb began ordering books in bulk, including rare books, from booksellers - and apparently destroying the originals. ISBNdb's website is really something - they manage to make it sound like they're doing you a huge favour by allowing you to access any book you want to read (at a price, obviously) instantly, online, from your desktop. 

Not long ago you could order a hard copy of any book you needed from a library (and up to a point you still can). Although it might take longer to source, the point of libraries is to conserve the original books, rather than destroying them. 

But there's a costly, sinister pay-off. Look at the rising numbers of data centre buildings being constructed to support it - no need for proper planning permission because the people financing them promise the earth, while systematically destroying it. 

The wonderful Erin Brockovich (remember the film? She's a real person) is currently fighting the rise of data centres, which are springing up everywhere (including the UK) with no proper public consultation or planning consent, despite the fact they seriously contaminate land, make a constant, deafening noise and use vast quantities of water at the expense of the environment. If you're interested, you can read about Erin's campaign in an article published recently in the Guardian.

I'm now ranting about the potential destruction of the planet by AI, while intermittently using it to research this piece. The irony isn't lost on me. So could direct action be the only possible alternative route to save the planet from the rise of data centres? This week saw Wynd Kaufman, aged 69, jailed for chaining and locking the front doors of Open AI's HQ last year. She's a member of a protest movement called StopAI , whose website describes them as a 'grassroots movement of everyday people using democratic and non-violent methods to disrupt the reckless development of destructive artificial intelligence technology'. As the first person jailed for taking direct action against destructive AI, she's been hailed by some as akin to Rosa Parks. Of course others might view her as a modern day Luddite. (Though if you follow that thought through, the Luddites had a point. Technology isn't always a good thing...)

Maybe we need to use Gandhi's example, using his charkha (portable spinning wheel) to spin cotton into yarn, a form of passive resistance against British colonial textile imports. OK, I'm not giving up my laptop to write for the time being - and I freely admit I used Google to help research while writing this piece. 

So what's my first step towards independence from AI? 

I'm trying to get places without using GoogleMaps. It involves using actual paper maps and road atlases like everyone had to, only a few decades ago. Amazingly, it works just like it always did.

A small step for me, right? But if we all remember how to do basic things without using AI, it could be a giant leap for humanity. 

Lu Hersey

lu-hersey.com

Oh you silly things By Steve Way 16 Aug 7:30 PM (20 days ago)

 I’m sure, like me, several children – and a few adults – have asked you, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ I know some authors have said it’s the question they most expect and least know how to answer. I’d be interested to know if, as I do, you feel that one of several ways we snatch onto possible ideas is by watching out in our daily lives for interesting incidents, events and situations in our daily lives. One possible consequence of that might be that we notice much around us that doesn’t necessarily spark off an idea – at least straightaway – but which we maybe consider in more depth than others might do. In this case, I want to describe a few things I’ve observed which struck me as particularly silly.

It hadn’t occurred to me before until I began writing this, that all of what I’m going to describe were observed on, or by roadways. I’ve mentioned before that my wife and I currently live in a small rural town in France (though we’re seriously thinking of moving back to the north of England after this year’s unending sequence of heatwaves – we realise that moving to the south would be a living example of the adage about moving from the frying pan into the fire).

A windy road, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other, stretches about five miles to the next town. Halfway along that road, just before two right-angled bends, is a sign indicating that lorries larger than a certain size should not use this road. There are no other signs like this anywhere along this road, i.e. at the beginning of the road at either end, offering said lorries the chance to re-route. Also, the sign only faces one way, so drivers coming the opposite way may only ever see the sign in their rear-view mirror. As I’ve intimated the road is so narrow and twisted that even if a driver considered honouring the restriction, it would be nigh on impossible for him or her to turn their vehicle around, leaving reversing their lorry nearly three miles backwards along a windy road as the only remaining option.

Ultimately this explains why we have to drive very carefully along this road, as regularly lorries patently far to large to drive on the road bear down on us and I have to drive as close to our edge as possible, while avoiding ending up in the deep drainage ditches dug alongside the road, only a foot or so away from each side. How we laugh at the ridiculousness of the sign at these stimulating moments…

But roadside stupidity isn’t confined to France. Years ago, I was driving on a hill road between Wakefield and Huddersfield and came to a small roundabout at what in the past had probably been a crossroads. The roundabout was grassed and rose gently towards the centre, like a small mound. Two signs had been placed near its peak. Both simply read, ‘Diversion’. One pointed to the right, the other to the left, creating a completely uninformative diversion lottery. There had been no signs about roadworks, or other obstructions coming up to this point – presumably there should have been two  - and as it happens none after as I continued on my way, in that sense ignoring the signs. I particularly couldn’t help wondering about the person who set up the second sign. The first was hardly helpful, or particularly informative but surely the person putting up the second one must have realised the implications of the conundrum they were setting up for me and my fellow drivers? Too much to explain to an unsympathetic supervisor perhaps…

Meanwhile, back in France, a country famous for encouraging cycling, they have been setting aside a section of several roads, on both sides, for cyclists. These areas demarcated by thick broken white lines marked along the road, with regular images of cycles painted in the lanes themselves. All very good and righteous of course – at least in theory. The only problem is that the space left between them available for cars and other vehicles on some of the roads where this has been done, is far too narrow for them to pass without colliding virtually head-on.  Another windy road near us is an example. Drivers have to decide between avoiding the cycle lane areas and facing the danger of colliding with a vehicle doing the same thing coming the other way, as we both drive around a curve in the road, or drive in the cycle lane in which cyclists assume themselves free of danger from vehicles and where, by doing so, we might be penalised by the authorities. I also feel that the massive cost, time and effort it took to set out these impractical zones would have been better spent on setting up regular signs reminding drivers to watch out for cyclists. (Though arguably there should be also be signs reminding cyclists to wear bright clothing and helmets – I don’t know if it’s the same in the UK these days but it seems half the cyclists in France don’t consider a journey without wearing the dullest colour clothing on the dullest coloured bikes, usually without a helmet.)

I find the French word for pavement quite sweet – it’s ‘trottoir’ – making is sound as though you should trot along them! However, certainly in our neck of the woods, they only have a cursory relationship with pavements. In many cases they are too narrow to walk along except by experienced tightrope walkers. The ‘trottoir’ in our street, close to the centre of the town, is far too narrow in both directions for a wheelchair. Speaking of wheelchairs, our post office – ‘La Poste’ – is near the end of our street, the last in a series of buildings and with the entrance in the corner nearest the road. It faces along the street, rather than into the road. The entrance is above the level of the pavement and so for the benefit of customers it can be accessed from one direction by two steps and from the other by an adjoining ramp. Given that the two steps face the centre of the town, able-bodied customers predominantly use them. However as the ‘trottoir’ to the side of the ramp is so narrow, wheelchair users – for whom presumably the ramp was mainly constructed? – would either have to lean precariously, half on the pavement, half on the road, to get around it or dismount the pavement, move along the road (in the potential face of oncoming traffic) and then remount having done so, presumably at the same time swinging their chair around to face the beginning of the ramp.

Having finally made it to this point by the way, they would then find that the ramp is so steep they would either need to have the strength of a paralympian to haul themselves up it, or a fit and healthy companion to push them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

A series of stories, sketches and poems to support the NC requirements for learning spelling in a creative way. Also editions for KS1 and LKS2.

Two is a Crowd, by Cath Howe, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Aug 3:30 PM (22 days ago)

 

    Hattie tells her own story, covering the end of her primary school time, summer holiday, and her start at secondary school. We first meet a Hattie who is loud, funny, confident, and sure of her long-term best friend, Amber. But then something very big happens. Hattie's family one ordinary evening suddenly face having to take in Mum's dead friend's daughter Seren for the foreseeable future. The room which was to become Hattie's is now Seren's, and family life focuses on the newcomer. Hattie had always thought she wanted a sister, but Seren is unrewarding to try and chat with. She's 'blank'. And she's allowed to have and do things that Hattie isn't. Everything is unfair, and that feeling of the world being against her escalates for Hattie when she and Seren begin secondary school. Shockingly, Amber no longer wants to be Hattie's friend. Hattie's behaviour is getting her labelled as 'a bad influence'. We feel her pain and her determination, even as we smile at her bhaviour, and oh, we long for her to regain her place in her family and in school! 

    All comes good in an exciting finale up on a roof when Seren finally shows herself (and her bedroom wall under a hanging) to be very far from blank.

    Brilliantly written, this is a fast-moving easy read that delivers at a profound level. Highly recommended. 

Unleash Your Creative Monster (AGAIN) by Andy Jones, illustrations by Olaf Falafel, review by Lynda Waterhouse 10 Aug 10:00 PM (26 days ago)

 

This post includes a review of a book that I first posted three years ago. I’m partly reposting it because I’m short of time but, mainly, I’m reposting it because of a recent encounter with some young writers, aged 9 and 8 years. They are daughters of our friends, very keen readers, and they love writing. They had both brought a story to read to us as part of their trip. I was put on the spot and asked to give them some writing tips.

PHEW! This book sprang to mind and I raced to my bookshelf and brought it out.

The book is packed full of advice, tips and writing prompts FOR EVERYONE. As the blurb states ‘this book contains essential skills for storytellers, the secret weapons of successful authors, and over 50 prompts and exercises to inspire not only young writers but old and gnarled ones like me too’.

There are four sections: Training your creative monster, Monster mistakes, When your monster gets stuck, and Feeding your creative monster. You don’t have to follow it from section to section, it’s designed for dipping into.

The first exercise invites you to create your own creative monster and give it a name. It suggests keeping your name secret because the mystery – that secret bond between writer and monster - is part of its power. Some monsters do reveal their names as Olaf’s illustrations point out and that is OK too.

On every page, Olaf Falafel’s illustrations make you smile, illuminate the concepts, and at times reassure you. For instance, the scary wind–up monkey says, ‘I wouldn’t say I’m evil but I do eat beans straight from the tin’.

It is not patronising or dull. The muses are mentioned, rich vocabulary is used, and grammar and literary concepts are explained with clarity and warmth. You will find an explanation of Chekhov’s gun and quotes from Stephen King. It shows you how to create FSPs (Fantastic Story Possibilities) and to play with metaphors but to mix them at your peril! It encourages you to make mistakes, because at least you are making something, and to write fearlessly. There is advice on how to start and run your own writers’ group and support on drafting and editing your work. The editing checklist is brilliant. The pages of advice on adding rhythm and variety to your sentences are the best!

The book emphasises the importance of developing your own style and reminds us that, ‘There are a lot of so-called “rules” for writing, but rules are like eggs. Not everyone likes them, some are bad, and all of them were made to be broken’.

A creative monster should visit every school in the land and deliver a copy to each classroom, but only after making the head teacher say ‘bum glue’ three times in morning assembly.

ISBN 978-1-4063-9662-1

www.walker.co.uk

WHY SCARY STORIES ARE GOOD FOR KIDS by Sharon Tregenza 8 Aug 4:00 PM (28 days ago)

As I kid I loved to read them as an adult I love to write them - scary stories. Give me ghosts and witches, throw in the odd zombie or vampire and a haunted house - the thrill is always there.

I think they build resilience in children. Young readers watch as people their age overcome fear and survive danger in the best possible way. Most kid's horror will also add a strong dose of humour to release tension. The laugh after the scare shows kids that "that was frightening - but I'm all right" giving them a sense of achievement.  

Three good scary books that I think accomplish all this and more are...

"Coraline" by Neil Gaimen.

This book turns a frightening threat into an adventure filled with dark comedy and courage.

Members' News August 6 Aug 10:00 PM (last month)

 August is a month for holidays and heatwaves and new books. 

First off, two new books from Jonathan Emmett

Thursday 6 August: GREAT DINOSAUR MISTAKES, a factual picture book co-written by palaeontologist Adam Smith, illustrated by Stieven Van der Poorten and published by Fox & Ink Books, explores some of the most extraordinary errors early palaeontologists made, and brings past and present versions of each prehistoric creature face to face in a fantastical time-travelling adventure full of fascinating facts.

More information and to buy

Also from Jonathan, coming Thursday 13 August: ONE DOG, TWO DOGS is a count to 20 book full of flaps to lift and pop-up surprises, illustrated by Rob Hodgson and published by Nosy Crow.

 

More information and to buy

Pippa Goodhart's You Choose series of pictures books has sold over two and a half million copies over almost two and a half decades. The sixth in the series, YOU CHOOSE, PARTY TIME, illustrated by Nick Sharratt, published by Puffin, will be released on August 20th. It has lots of choosing to do. Which party theme and invitation? Which games, music, entertainments? Which face paint pattern? Who will be your guests? Which delicious cake to choose? It’s all up to you. There is much to talk about, spot, ponder, and laugh about.

More information and to buy

Manolito and William by Paul May 3 Aug 9:00 PM (last month)

This week I met Manolito Gafotas for the first time. Manolito is an 8-year-old boy invented by the writer, Elvira Lindo, for a radio show in Spain in the early 1990s. The first book about Manolito, Manolito Gafotas, was published in 1994 and six more followed. The last of these was published in 2002 and then there was a ten year gap before Mejor Manolo arrived in 2012. In those 20 years Manolito grew from 8 to 12 years old, so he managed to grow considerably faster than William Brown, with whom he shares certain characteristics. William grew not at all in 50 years despite the many birthdays he celebrated. 

Both William Brown and Manolito Gafotas have broken out of the world of children's literature to become part of popular culture. Elvira Lindo says in an interview that 'her creation has escaped her control, and even surpassed her.  . . . Manolito is popular culture. It's something collective. The readers already know him better than I do.' The same could be said of William, who just like Manolito has been translated into more than 20 languages and made into films, TV series and radio broadcasts, most notably, in William's case, those BBC adaptations performed by Martin Jarvis. William lives on, still 11 years old, long after the death of his creator. Happily, Manolito's creator is still very much alive.

William Brown's character was enhanced by the illustrations of Thomas Henry, just as was Manolito's by the illustrations of Emilio Urberuaga. Both characters are instantly recognisable from these illustrations but I'm sure that in both cases it's the writing that has made them so famous. William and Manolito are both well-intentioned boys who inadvertently end up in trouble and both are essentially comic creations, but the books have a sharp underlying vein of social commentary which is best appreciated by adults, and this cross-generational appeal must be a huge part of their success.

There are, however, just as many differences as similarities between the William stories and those about Manolito. William's world was an invention of its author. Richmal Crompton's niece, Richmal Ashbee, says: 'William's house was not like anywhere Richmal Crompton had ever lived . . . The greenhouse, stable, morning-room and all the rest were conjured up to meet the passing needs of the Brown family . . . The host of servants in the house, too, came from outside her own experience.' It may be that in these books Richmal Crompton caught something of the essence of a certain kind of English village life as it was between the two world wars, but she was never interested in precise details, or accuracy. The sense that the world of these books never really existed, together with the fact that William never grows old, makes the books seem timeless. That, along with the way that Crompton manages to catch something in William's character that adults recognise in their children and children recognise in themselves - a universal quality of childhood.

It is precisely this that readers all over the world recognise in Manolito Gafotas. I say all over the world, but it seems that Manolito hasn't been as successful in English. Four of the books have been translated, with Manolito becoming Manolito Four-eyes, but from the sample I've read I'm not sure that the slang of a poor barrio in Madrid translates that well into (American) English. The William books have been translated into Spanish and are very popular in Spain, but were heavily censored in the Franco era. 

Unlike William, Manolito comes from a real place, the barrio of Carabanchel in the south of Madrid. In their depiction of a working-class neighbourhood the books have something in common with Eve Garnett's The Family at One-End Street, though this is a very different world. The scene includes drug-addicts, muggers and fights. The kids do stupid things, they are a little wild, they play on the streets, but when their parents call them in for their sausages every evening they quickly head for home. Some of the reviews of the English-language versions (from the USA) were appalled by the bad example they thought the books set for children. The kids argue with their parents and teachers, they cheat (or try to) on school tests, they fight and play games of chicken. They are in fact real kids. And at the heart of the books is a tender description of family life in a tiny apartment on the third floor. 'We don't have cockroaches in our flat,' says Manolito's mother to a neighbour. 'We'd like some, but there's no room for them.'

Manolito's dad is a truck-driver who arrives home late each night. Manolito has a small brother he calls 'El Imbécil'. His mother doesn't think this is funny, and neither do those US reviewers on Amazon even though 'imbécil' has been softened in translation to 'bozo'. Elvira Lindo has strong views on the rewriting of children's books to conform to modern sensibilities. Of 'El Imbécil' she says: 'What the children tell me is that 'El Imbécil' is 'la bomba.' What for some adults was something inexplicable, for children becomes something absolutely natural; they know how to discern very well. They know that it has nothing to do with the intelligence of the character. They understand that it is an insult that has become something else. They have understood everything very well."

Manolito's mother, Catalina, is sharp-tongued, long-suffering and quick-witted. His grandfather, 79 years old in the first book, has prostate trouble and often gets Manolito out of bother. The words with which Manolito introduces him, 'Mi abuelo mola, mola mucho, mola un pegote.' I suspect would be recognised by most Spaniards. They mean, very roughly, 'My grandfather is cool, very cool, incredibly cool.' All of these characters help to make the books entertaining, but it is the character of Manolito himself that has turned him into a cultural icon.

Manolito is a complex character. He is vulnerable. He gets beaten up but he bounces back. He says that before he got the nickname Manolito Gafotas he used to cry a lot. He'd get bullied in the playground by people calling him 'gafotas' (four-eyes) but once he was Manolito Gafotas insulting him was a waste of time. Manolito talks all the time (luckily for the reader). He talks so much he gets sent to the school psychologist. She tells him he can tell her all his problems. He asks if that means everything, from the day he was born, and she foolishly says yes. He fills three exercise books and is very happy to read what he's written. The psychologist tells his mother he doesn't have any trauma, he just talks a lot. They need to listen to him more at home. 'MORE!!!???' says his mother.

Manolito has some crazy ideas and he is very easily led. When his friends suggest playing chicken with approaching cars on the street Manolito stands in front of a truck and thinks he's making it stop with the force of his mind. One day he suddenly decides it would be a great idea to use some coloured marker pens to draw three parallel lines above the bannisters in his apartment block. I know this boy. Elvira Lindo grew up in this barrio and she knows this place and these kids. I admire the way she understands that it isn't the job of children's literature to provide models of good behaviour in the manner of those books presented as Victorian Sunday School prizes. Anyone who spends time on a primary school playground will soon realise that what children actually do and say is very different from what their teachers and parents might want. It's a kind of parallel world that hasn't changed that much since I was a child myself.

When I was teaching there were several moments when well-meaning teachers attempted to introduce 'playground games' on the grounds that children weren't playing them any more. Children are always playing games, it's just that adults seldom recognise them for what they are. It's the children's world and it's often a private one. In Manolito Gafotas the kids know very well that you don't say 'ni puñetera idea' (no bloody idea) in front of the teachers. They say NPI instead, and there are a million other things that children say and do that are hidden from the adults around them. 

The Manolito books are not currently available in English, though you can get second-hand copies and you can read the first book on the Internet Archive if you sign up. But unfortunately the translation is so Americanised that I find it almost impossible to read. Using slang in a children's book is always going to run the risk of making the text sound dated in the future. It seems as if Elvira Lindo avoids this by using a kind of generalised slang rather than the 'slang of the moment' and by adding in very idiosyncratic  'Manolito-isms'. Certainly the books have remained in print in Spain and have been incredibly popular for more than 30 years. The US translation just doesn't really work, and that's a shame. That line about Manolito's grandfather, 'Mi abuelo mola . . .' is translated: 'My grandpa's cool; he's so cool, he's a whole lotta cool.' Manolito often refers to men and women as 'tío' or 'tía', words which, although they really mean 'uncle' and 'aunt' are used extremely commonly in Spain, maybe a bit like we use 'guy', but there is no direct equivalent in English. What certainly doesn't work is to replace them with 'dude' and 'broad'. This all just shows how tricky translation is. But I suspect that the real reason there haven't been further attempts to translate Manolito is just that difficulty of coping with the sensitive issues of the kind that led to the rewriting of Roald Dahl and the Enid Blyton.

Although there is one William story, William and the Nasties, that hasn't been included in collections since 1986, and about which Crompton herself was said to have been uncomfortable, in general the William stories don't seem to have been subject to pressure to rewrite for a modern audience. The censorship of the stories during Franco's rule is interesting though, and I shall find out more about that. Otherwise, publishers here don't seem too bothered about, for instance, William and his mates kidnapping babies and their prams from outside shops. But perhaps that's because babies don't get left outside shops in their prams any more.

The interview with Elvira Lindo is from La Marea 20/11/2024

Richmal Ashbee wrote the introduction to Mary Cadogan's Just William Through the Ages

Revolution! by Joan Lennon 2 Aug 4:30 PM (last month)

"So, what are you writing these days?" they ask.

"A book for 8 to 12 year-olds about revolutions," I answer.

"STILL?!?!?" they reply.

Yup, it took a while. But now, after all this time, it's finally here.

I was introduced to non-fiction writing for this age group a few years back when I co-wrote two books with Joan Haig: Talking History (150 Years of Speakers and Speeches) pub. 2022, and Great Minds (2500 Years of Thinkers and Philosophy) pub. 2023. 

I was smitten. Revolution! followed. (Eventually.)

Here's a bit of a blurb:

What does it take to change the world?

Sometimes it’s toppling systems and finding new ways to govern that give people a better chance.

Sometimes it’s challenging long-held beliefs and finding the courage to think differently.

Sometimes it’s coming up with ingenious inventions that transform our everyday lives.

The world we know today has been shaped by exceptional events, ideas and inventions. Revolution! tells the stories of ordinary people who made the extraordinary happen.

Our parents before we knew them - by Sue Purkiss 31 Jul 9:00 PM (last month)

 By now, my new book, An Ordinary War, should be available on Amazon, and fear not, I'll be writing all about it in a post later this month. It is inspired by my father's experiences as a prisoner of war for five years, after being captured on the way to Dunkirk.

But today, I'm writing not about him, but about my mother.

We've recently had a room refurbished. It's in the oldest part of the house, and dates from several hundred years ago, when this was a one-up one-down cottage or farmhouse. Since we moved in, over forty years ago, this room has had very little done to it. The walls were covered with ancient woodchip, which had been patched up and was now, in places, unattached to the crumbling plaster. The not-so-old chipboard floor was crumbling into large holes in places, so you had to be careful not to turn your ankle - only the carpet was holding it together.

So, finally, its day has come. It's been replastered and refloored, it's got smart new skirting boards and lights - even fancy new sockets with USB points. we've painted it in pretty colours, and once the carpet's down, it'll be ready to go. 

At the moment it's an empty space. But soon, other furniture will go into it, including a carved oak chest from another bedroom. I was explaining this a couple of weeks ago to my daughter and son-in-law, and we went to look at the chest. As we discussed this and various other furniture moves, Katie noticed an old embroidered fire screen which came from my parents' house. We hadn't used it for its original purpose because we had a mesh and wrought iron one from my parents-in-laws' house, which was really more practical.

Katie was admiring the embroidered screen - as you can see, it is very pretty. Then she had a brilliant idea. Why not make it into a picture, she said, and hang it in the 'new' room? So she and Chris took it away, and brought it back a week later, all ready to hang. He'd cut off the legs, and sanded and oiled the frame. And as he'd done so, he'd noticed an inscription, scartched into the frame. It said, CPL L Clarke 1943. This was my mother, Lily Clarke. During the war, she was a nurse with the WAAF, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force: the women's branch of the RAF.

I hadn't been sure who had embroidered the firescreen. I'd rather thought it was Auntie Ada, an old friend of Mum's, who had been a sort of a mother substitute to Mum (whose own mother had been somewhat deficient in the nurturing department), and who I knew to have given Mum lots of embroidered tablecloths and the like. But clearly, Mum had made it herself. And she'd done it during the war. 

Photo by Chris Davies

She was stationed on various bases in Lincolnshire, and she got to know a farmer and his wife, Mr and Mrs Thorpe. I think Mrs Thorpe was another substitute mother figure: she and Frank were very kind to Mum, and they stayed in touch after the war. (In fact oddly, with a nice little touch of circularity, the old carved chest, which we'd gone to look at when Katie spotted the firescreen, was left to Mum by the Thorpes.) Perhaps Mum worked on the firescreen when she was staying with the Thorpes: I couldn't really imagine her doing it in the hurly burly of an airforce base, with constant emergencies and admissions to the hospital.

Dad didn't talk much about his experiences as a POW, and Mum didn't talk much about her experiences in the WAAF. She reminisced occasionally about the different bases she'd been on, and she had a few photos - and she stayed in touch with one of the nurses she'd served with, who in fact was one of my godmothers. But you never got a sense of what day-to-day life was like, what it felt like to be in that situation. Probably, sadly, I just didn't ask the right questions.

But this little detail - her name scratched proudly onto the frame of this picture which she'd embroidered so painstakingly - somehow has drawn her closer to me. Our relationship wasn't always easy. Probably thanks largely to her own mother, she didn't find it easy to show affection. She poured it into the things she made for myself and my sister: dresses she sewed, cardigans she knitted - once, even, beautiful tweed suits that she went on an evening course to learn how to tailor. She loved making things and growing things. 

Now, when I look at the picture, I will imagine her working on it as the war raged and planes circled above the flat Lincolnshire countryside - and it will remind me of her.

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Sheena Wilkinson 28 Jul 8:00 PM (last month)

I've written on here before about the shift from living alone (for 24 years) to living with a husband, step child and two dogs, and the impact that has had on my writing from a purely practical point of view.

view from the desk (if I turn round)

When I first moved into this house, the only place for me to work was the dining room. I wrote  at the  table, and when we needed something bigger than the kitchen table to eat at --  if we had more than two people for dinner -- I could magically twitch my nose, shove all my writing paraphernalia into a cupboard, whip out a tablecloth and -- ta-da! -- the room became a dining room again. 

the old set up

It worked for a while. I was proud of my ability to compromise. It made sense to have a dual-purpose room. It was, spoilt, first-world and middle-class of me to complain that I didn't really have my own writing space. We wouldn't be staying here forever, and I looked forward to moving into a house where I could prioritise a room of my own once again. I would be happy with a tiny box, just so long as it didn't have to be anything BUT a study. And we don't entertain much, so the occasions when I had to transform the room back into a dining room were infrequent. 

too many chairs but nowhere to sit!

And yet. The room never felt right. The table was too big and invariably ended up in a mess, which I hated because I like order. There was an armchair but I never sat in it because the room was so dominated by the table that it never felt like somewhere to relax. And when we did use it as a dining room I felt that all my shoved-into-a-cupboard writing was judging me. As for that move -- well, it's still on the horizon, but we know now that, for various reasons, we are here for the duration.

my lovely new desk

I now have a proper room of my own. It felt selfish, in a way, to claim this whole space, which is much bigger than I need, but in fact, rendering the room single-purpose has actually made it more flexible. I now have a comfy place to sit and read. When my husband is watching the racing on TV I have somewhere to go that isn't the kitchen. I can entertain my friends here, or knit and listen to podcasts, or simply read. 

somewhere to sit and read

Has it improved my writing? Well, only time will tell, but it certainly hasn't hurt it. 

tiny bookcase -- £15 in a charity shop

REMEMBERING A SERIOUS GAME By Penny Dolan 24 Jul 10:18 AM (last month)

The academic year might be over but schools are, behind the gates, still working.
Computers & IT systems need attention, Classrooms, corridors and spaces must be cleaned, cupboards tidied, stationery re-ordered, art & craft materials topped up and library stock and book-boxes sorted out for the year ahead. All the essential practical tasks.

A witch subplot in hindsight – by Rowena House 20 Jul 3:30 PM (last month)

One theme that seems to have been consistent in my ABBA posts over the past few years is how slow progress has been on Book 2, which are famously tough to write, my seventeenth-century witch trial work-in-progress proving that general point.

But...

As my characters and I approach the last two months of this being a PhD work-in-progress, I can also see how their stories came on in leaps and bounds in the past twelve months, including a scramble to finish Draft 3 of the main plot last month, hence the lack of an ABBA post from me in June. Apologies.

What changed? 

One simple answer is the end of the PhD. Who doesn’t work better with a deadline?

But the story hasn't simply ended; it has changed fundamentally from the first draft, completed in April last year when I thought the main plot was the entire story, just one with a massive hole in the middle where a woman’s story should have been, my main protagonist being a male pamphleteer. 

The feminist subplot told from a woman viewpoint arrived in a rush in June 2025 for reasons I’m analysing for the critical commentary on the novel at the moment. Some of these reasons have to do with grief, which I’m not ready to write about just yet, but as I analyse the process, I’m seeing parallels with The Goose Road, my children's debut, written with the massive benefit of the collective effort of Bath Spa’s MA in writing for young people, for which I still can’t thank everyone involved  enough. Doing this one without such support has definitely made it far harder.

The first big hurdle with The Goose Road that other people couldn't help me with was the enormity of the First World War as a subject and a feeling that I needed permission to write about it. With Book Two, the ‘witches’ story wasn’t mine to tell, either. 

Taking Wilfred Owen’s war poems with me to key WW1 locations in France gave me that sense of permission in 2014; I was honouring the past, not invading it.

Now, I wonder if it was the understanding that I think I've acquired from years of researching, writing, and thinking about witch trials that gave me permission to enter the witch suspects’ dungeon this time around.

 

 

For example, last year, when writing about finishing the first (partial) draft of Book Two, I noted:

‘The biggest creative eye-opener of finishing the full draft was an entirely unexpected release of pent-up creative thoughts which arrived in a rush AFTER I spent a week tweaking the resolution. Years of fiddling with single-sentence commercial pitches fell away, replaced by a solid plot one-liner (15 words). 

'More importantly, a character one-liner arrived out of the blue, too, which, with hindsight, I can see is the heart of the story, the universal wood hidden within the story trees. The specific character journey on which I had been fixated turned out to be a metaphor for something simpler.’

That one-liner: a young man overcomes group-think and regains his humanity. The driving force behind his change of heart: writing about flawed prosecutions forced him to think critically.

Really, that’s my story, too. 

Writing about a specific set of witch trials forced me to think critically about the how of witchcraft belief rather than dismiss it as archaic nonsense. Applying social psychology theories to my pamphleteer explained his belief system, to my satisfaction at least.

The link with the here and now therefore became the slender nature of the gap between seventeenth century mindsets and the irrationalities of our times, which seem to me to be no more than a variation on a theme. A notion which seems to have been the key to unlocking herstory (versus history). 

 

Next month, I’m booked into a remote Dartmoor inn for four nights to re-read her story to see if that creative rush still makes sense. I’m hoping her subplot won’t need more than a line edit/proof read. But then again, maybe I’m forcing myself into that position by not giving myself enough time to do much else with it. Like ruin it! We’ll see. I’ll be back from the moor in time for the next ABBA blog and will let you know how that plan worked out.


Rowena House Author on Facebook

rowena.houseauthor on Instagram 

 

Link Ed In by Steve Way 16 Jul 7:30 PM (last month)

 The great language teacher Michel Thomas often said that you learn a lot more about your own language when learning another. Although only semi-fluent in French, I am able to teach beginners (as my dad used to say, ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’) and often tell them that ‘most posh English comes from French’. Despite that I still feel uncomfortable saying ‘Je demande’ even though in French that merely means ‘I ask’ rather than that I’m being argumentative!

As an adjunct to Michel’s statement you could perhaps add learning more about your own language when you teach it. In my case, teaching mainly Spanish speakers, it’s made me more acutely aware of how unintuitive the pronunciation of English words is. Previously, though the habit of familiarity, it had never occurred to me that the pronunciation of the mass of words ending in -ed are never in fact pronounced as ‘Ed’, as in the abbreviation of Edward. Understandably, until I make my best effort to explain, my students ask-Ed or answer-Ed (also sounding the w) etc. Given that my teaching colleagues and I are only explaining this to a fraction of Spanish speakers, adopted English words ending in -ed also end up dedicated to Ed. Our most frequent discussions revolve around the professionals’ social media platform ‘LinkedIn’. Spanish speakers refer to it as ‘Link Ed In’.* One of my students responded to my explanation of this error by saying, “Ok Steve, I get it. It should be pronounced ‘Link-t In’ but I’ll have to carry on calling it ‘Link Ed In’ with my friends, otherwise they won’t know what I’m talking about!”

A different English term that has been changed in pronunciation by Spanish speakers is ‘WiFi’. They pronounce it as ‘wiffy’. I first discovered this from a student who was excited about going to a conference in London. “I’ll have to do some work while I’m in England,” he told me. “So when I get to the hotel, I’ll have to ask them if they’ve got a really strong wiffy!” In order to maintain cordial diplomatic relations between our two countries, I gently suggested that he didn’t do that.

Even though we state some acronyms as though they are words, such as ‘NASA’, Spanish speakers do so far more frequently. When I asked one student where he had been on holiday, he seemed to say that he had been to ‘Ossa’. Being desperately ignorant when it comes to geography, I wondered if he was referring to an eastern European city. Fortunately all became clear as he continued speaking, “Yes, we visited New York and then we went to Boston…” “Ah!” I declared. “You mean the U.S.A.” emphasising each letter. On other occasions some students talk about an important executive at the company by referring to them as the ‘See-oh’. You’ve probably deduced they were speaking about their C.E.O.

Something else interesting I’ve seen from teaching English is that it seems that the various schemes and courses used for teaching the language have certain idiosyncratic commonalities. It seems that all of them suggest that we all use one particular phrase, more or less in unison, when it begins raining. On the – increasingly rare – occasions when it’s raining on the plain or elsewhere in Spain, every student announces that, “it’s raining cats and dogs,” in the proud manner of a toddler exclaiming, “look, no stabilisers!” Now I know the phrase exists… but when did you last hear anyone using it? Also – astonishingly – the word ‘astonish’ is normally unknown to my students until I introduce them to it, which seems to indicate that for some reason this word has been excluded from all the standard courses. (I do tend to go off piste with my teaching, which is why I’ve discovered this.)

*Could that be misconstrued as ‘Link Ed in to a WhatsApp group?’ or does that could as splitting your social media sites rather than infinitives?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently published

 

The original idea behind Reluctant Writers Resource was to provide an 'idea-a-week' to support creative writing lessons during the 38 weeks of the school year. However the concept mushroomed and the resource now provides considerably more than 38 weeks worth of ideas. The resource is divided into four sections. The 'Get the Pen Moving' section provides short, snappy ideas to help stir up the creative juices and support writers by getting words on the page, ideas include 'Nutty New Year Resolutions' and 'Silly Rules' (including those for teachers, which children seem to love writing!) The 'Standard ideas' section provides accessible, punchy ideas like 'Crazy Superheroes (and a few villains)' and 'Very Short Stories' and is followed by the 'Advanced ideas' section, providing more extended and sophisticated pieces as writers gain more confidence, including 'Letters to Aunt Agatha' (an agony aunt who receives bizarre letters from her readers) and 'Fairy-sized Fairy Tales', comically foreshortened versions of popular tales. The final section contains examples of 'Structured Stories' ranging from a series of short stories following a very distinct format to a piece (Hank Bullman rides into Certain City) clearly requiring a sequel. (What happens when he rides into Uncertain City?) Writers are encouraged to become co-authors of the structured stories and authors of increasing confidence to compose the Hank Bullman sequel.

Hardback ISBN: 979-8242528680

Paperback ISBN: 979-8241950987

Kindle ASIN: B0GF8RQ7WX    (The 0 is a zero)

Monkey and Me, by Emily Gravett, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Jul 3:30 PM (last month)

 

    This isn't a new book, but it's new to me in board book form. Clever Emily Gravett, both author and illustrator, gives us a fun game that children can join-in with -

    Monkey and me,

    Monkey and me,

    Monkey and me,

    We went to see,

    We went to see some ... Turn the page

And we go from the child and her toy monkey acting out animal actions that let us guess what they are going to see this time. 

    Great fun! And we slow down at the end to leave the book and your child audience feeling suitably sleepy to make this a perfect bedtime read -

    Highly recommended. Tested on a one year old who immediately wanted to read it again.

Is post-literacy really coming? Anne Rooney 13 Jul 12:19 AM (last month)

Around 2,500 years ago, Socrates (according to Plato) bemoaned the advent of literacy as corrosive to our memories: “[reading] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.” He was right, but literacy, on the whole, was a good thing for society. (And we wouldn't have known what Socrate thought without it.) Literacy has been a source of power for two millennia. In societies where only a few can read, they dominate  as they control the flow of information (and misinformation). Today, audio and video communication have given that power to everyone with a smart phone. Democratising the power to spread misinformation is of doubtful value, but at least we can now all find three ways to put on our eyeliner or clear a blocked drain without the aggro of having to read. 

So far, children still have to learn to read and write, though the reading they are set becomes ever briefer and less challenging. For decades we have seen children complain that they don't need to learn arithmetic as they can use a calculator. How long before they say they don't need to read and write because everything either is or can be audio/visual? And what does that mean for children's writers and children's books? 

Picture books are rooted in oral tradition. They use word play, often rhyme, alliteration, repetition and musicality just as oral storytellers and poets have done for millennia. And to the recipient (the child) they are orally delivered, read by an adult or older sibling. Picture books are already giving children the tools they need to live in an oral culture. As authors and parents, we hope the pleasure they get from hearing picture books will prompt them to want to learn to read, to be able to repeat that pleasure whenever they want, without the assistance of a reading adult.

Many adults read very little, taking audio books, movies, TV, online video and music as their principal sources of both entertainment and information. But somone has to write all those still, at least for now. AI can produce derivative slop, but nothing wholly original, so it will all get increasingly samey as it feeds on itself (this is 'model collapse' in AI jargon). It's unlikely everyone will be content with slop so there should be some market for thoughtful creativity still. And no one can write who does not read.

But the outcome of writing is not just articulating what you think, it's working out what you think. Socrates could, no doubt, work out his thoughts using spoken language, but I don't think we could do that now — precisely because the ability to record things, either in writing or digitally, has eroded those skills we once had.  The human brain hasn't changed in 2,500 years, though. We could still develop those skills from infancy if we lived in an environment where it was necessary. And perhaps our descendants will again, after the apocalpyse when they can't read or write or have any access to digital repositories of information. For now, though, it's important to nurture the skills and pleasures of reading and writing. In the worst-case scenario, those children who grow up reading and writing when others don't will be those with power and knowledge. It's our books they will have been reading. What they read will show them how to think and suggest what they should think. We need to make our books count because the future of the world depends on them. — literally. No pressure, then.

And maybe it's time to re-read Ong's Orality and Literacy (1982)...

Anne Rooney 

website

Coming soon: Science Museum Space Annual 2027, published August 2026 

 

 

 

 

USING FOLKLORE IN MODERN CHILDREN'S STORIES by Sharon Tregenza 9 Jul 1:41 AM (last month)

 I think folklore is an absolute gift to children's authors. The more I dip into it, the more wonderful stories come to light sparking ideas galore for new books.  Where else can you find so many ghosts, witches, giants and mermaids. 

Dragging these tales into the modern world is an interesting exercise in itself. Think of a giant struggling with an iphone, a mermaid having to deal with plastic pollution and a witch going viral with her TikTok dance. 

Old myths and legends feel fresh when they're transported into modern life. It also works well for creating a strong sense of place - mysterious caves, dangerous cliffs and creepy woods. All luscious stuff. 

Members' News July 6 Jul 10:00 PM (2 months ago)

Congratulations to all Scattered Authors with books out this month. There's lots for younger children here, nicely timed for summer reading.

Animagicals: Noah's Bear, by Paula Harrison, illustrated by Erwin Madrid

Book two in Paula's magical series published by Nosy Crow, follows the adventures of children who can turn into animals.

Noah loves changing into a bear! He’s sure it’s the animal he’s destined to be. So why do his friends at Wild Haven School say he should choose something else? A mysterious magic brings a terrible storm to the land of Animagia, putting every animal in danger. Noah is determined to help. Can he stay true to himself and prove how great he can be as a bear?

Details here

Tales of the Wild: Animal Families by Alice Harman, illustrated by Becca Hall

How to Build a Human by Moria Butterfield, illustrated by Clare Elsom

Another in the Builderbot series, published by Ladybird, 2nd July.

Meet the Builderbots – the best building crew in the universe! They can build just about anything.... but can they build a human?

Take a fascinating tour through the incredible body, and discover all the things that make a human – from the weird to the wonderful!

Leaving the House by Sally Nicholls, illustrated by Ellie Snowdon

Frogs and Toads by Paul May 3 Jul 9:00 PM (2 months ago)

On my allotment in Friern Barnet I have an old cast-iron bath. When Friern Hospital closed in 1993 an Italian named Mario laid claim to the bath, and transported it a few hundred metres to the allotment site. The hospital was originally known as Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and at one time had more than 2000 inmates and hundreds of staff.

There are many Italians who have allotment plots near mine. Many of them arrived after WW2 when the British government was recruiting staff for places like Friern Hospital. Others, like Mario, followed family members or friends who were already here. Mario came from Naples in the early 1960s to work on the hospital's farm. Yes, a farm! On its 75 acres the hospital had extensive workshops, kitchens, recreation grounds, a gasworks and a brewery. It had its own water supply, chapel and cemetery, and even its own railway station. Where once there was farmland, now there is a huge retail park stretching down to the North Circular Road. The hospital also had the longest corridor in Britain and quite a few cast-iron baths, one of which ended up on my allotment.

Source: Wellcome Collection

I took on the allotment in 2016. Half of it was then planted with grapevines which I quickly discovered had been planted by Mario. Apparently at one time the whole plot had been covered with vines. Mario had taken cuttings from a vine belonging to a neighbour of his with the intention of using the grapes to make wine, only to discover that these particular grapes were useless for winemaking. At one time he had cultivated three adjacent plots but now he only had the one next to mine, from which he dispensed horticultural advice to anyone who'd listen, and where he kept a vast collection of stuff that he'd salvaged from skips because it might come in handy one day. He had also salvaged the bath, which was now partly a water store and partly a seat. Mario sat down often because he was really very ill, but he continued coming to the allotment, digging and grumbling and dispensing unasked-for advice despite the efforts of his family to stop him. Looking at his plot, which, despite all the junk he'd collected, was very picturesque, a friend said to me that it could have been anywhere in rural Europe. 

Mario

It was to try to preserve something of that atmosphere that I took over Mario's plot, in addition to my own, after he died in 2019. I cleared all the junk and turned the bath into a pond. I'd already moved the bath once, from my plot to Mario's, but now I had it back again. I moved it to a new location and planted yellow flag iris and marsh marigold. I made a mound so that wildlife could get to the water, but recently I decided that it would be better if the bath was sunk into the ground, so I started clearing it out in order to move it. That was when I found the frogs. They keep themselves to themselves, those frogs. I never see them out and about, but there were at least four in the bath. Hopefully they've all survived their move to a new location.

I like to think that the frogs are like Arnold Lobel's famous Frog. I love the Frog and Toad books and I was delighted to discover, in a children's bookshop in Bologna, that they have been translated into Italian. It's very good fun reading a book like this, one that I could almost recite with my eyes closed, in another language. Toad sounds great in Italian: "Questa casa è un distastro. Ho un sacco di lavore di fare." It's almost better than the English.

And there's a great story for gardeners where Toad's seeds don't seem to be growing and he shouts at them so loudly that Frog tells him he's scaring them and he needs to leave them alone. Mario didn't need to be told how to grow things and he would no doubt have offered slightly scornful advice to Toad. Like most of my allotment neighbours who come from Kurdistan and Italy, Macedonia and Albania, for Mario growing his own food was just something you did, not a lifestyle choice. Perhaps that was why Mario was so keen to offer advice to those he thought were bungling part-timers. The trouble was, there was only one proper way to do things, and that was HIS way. He also ordered me not to cut the grassy path where the oregano was growing. He'd brought it all the way from the hills above Naples, but he really didn't need to worry about losing it because it has seeded itself everywhere. I also have a very fine white-flowered variety of oregano that was brought by another elderly Italian, Giacomo, from his home in Sicily. Giacomo has also since died. 

Most of the Italians are now in their 80s. Half a dozen have died in the ten years since I came to the allotments. But for at least two of them their memory is preserved in the plants that they brought with them from their childhood homes, and that are now flourishing in North London. And the memory of London's most famous lunatic asylum is preserved in a pond in a bath. The asylum was once a byword or perhaps a synonym for lunacy, and even gets a mention in a children's book. "Three cheers for the Hempress of Colney 'atch," jeer the Londoners in The Magician's Nephew when Jadis, escaped from Narnia, proclaims herself Empress.

Oregano from Naples

Oregano from Sicily

The bath in its new location

* There is a famous philosophical article inspired by the Frog and Toad story Cookies entitled Frog and Toad Lose Control by Jeanette Kennett and Michael Smith which is only available via subscription to JSTOR, but there are also numerous discussions of the story online, and if you search hard enough you might even be able to find the mentioned article republished somewhere. I know I did manage to read it once.