Brighton Festival Events

The weekend is over, and my Brighton Festival events complete. All went well, thankfully, and I really enjoyed both of them.

On Friday evening I chaired a panel on the theme of "Creating Books for Very Young Children." The very talented Polly Dunbar, Chris Fisher and Axel Scheffler were speaking. Each gave a short presentation, followed by a group discussion and then questions from the audience. There was some resistance to the idea of addressing a particular age group at all, though Polly most clearly creates books aimed at the youngest of readers. Chris Fisher was lively and entertaining, which was especially impressive since this was his first event aimed at adults. And Axel showed a great array of images from his books, including various novelty titles (puzzles, pop-ups, etc.). All said that they really create images for themselves, that speak to them. We had an audience with many aspiring illustrators with keen questions, and the panelists kindly gave advice and looked at sample illustrations during the book signing which followed the event. Hilary Cooke who organizes the 26 Letters children's book events at the festival, was an efficient and friendly host. And she let me borrow her watch, since I continue to resist being a slave to time (though I am very punctual). This event was sold-out to around 200 people, and there was a great buzzy vibe.

Then on Saturday I attended a poetry workshop with Adisa, a very tall, charming and energetic man. I am writing an evaluation for the Children's Discovery Centre who are running an Arts Council-funded series of performances and workshops at book festivals. I was impressed with how Adisa engaged the children from the beginning, getting them to fill in the blanks for his rhymes in his poems, then write some of their own metaphorical poems about the place that feels like home. I'd definitely recommend him to anyone looking for an inspiring poet/performer.

And on Sunday, I interviewed author Patrick Ness. While the audience was smaller than the Friday night event, those people who made it got a real treat. Patrick, who wrote The Knife of Never Letting Go and his new book, The Ask and the Answer, was honest and full of wisdom. He spoke about his own writing development and gave several writing tips to the teens and adults in attendance. He also gave two lively readings to help bring the book to life for all of us there. Since I'm such a big fan of these books, I had no problems asking lots and lots of questions (I didn't even get to all of them). He went on afterwards to see the new Star Trek film, and I've heard he gave it two thumbs up. So there you go.

I love doing these sorts of events, as I luckily don't have a fear of speaking in front of crowds, and am just so keen to get to talk to people involved in creating children's books. Hilary was very kind (she called me her favorite chair so far), so hopefully there will be more to come at next year's festival. Watch this space...

Little Green Pigging - Part Deux

So it's taken me a few days to blog about my last and final Little Green Pig session. Ella wrote on the LGP blog, so you can see some of the books that the Saddlebacks (7-11 year olds) listed as their favorites.

I focused this session on inspirational books, and how they can shape our own writing. I did more or less the same thing with both groups, and it seemed to work well. I started by doing word association to get things loosened up. And then asked each person to name a book that they love and say why. Ella listed books chosen by the younger group. The teens, as far as I can recall, chose the Twilight Books (a very popular choice), Harry Potter, Now We Are Six, The Roman Mysteries...

I then talked about Skellig and David Almond, and read each group an extract keeping track of words or writing techniques that stood out to them (with the younger group, it was just words). I wrote a list based on their feedback and then asked everyone to write their own story, inspired in some way by Skellig. We got some great stuff back - some exploring Skellig's identity, others going in completely different directions but inspired by flight, by the mystery in the story, by the language. One of the younger ones came up with a funny bluebottle eating creature.

I really enjoyed this session, and generally working with Little Green Pig and the kids. I've done my best to attract the teens to my interview on Sunday with Patrick Ness. And a few might even make it. I hope so, as I've asked them to come up with particularly good questions if they do!

Children's literature and academia

An unusual article was published in today's Independent which describes Michael Rosen's path with children's literature academic study. I say unusual because I realize how rarely the non-academic children's literature world mentions that there is, in fact, an academic children's literature world. I can't remember if I have ever seen a newspaper article about it.

Michael Rosen successfully completed a PhD which involved research, analysis, and writing a collection of poems. I'm afraid I didn't quite make it that far (at least not yet). I started the PhD, managed to complete 16 interviews with authors and editors, but became blocked when it came time to write it all up. I do still want to do something with the interviews, as I think there's important oral history there that is rarely revealed or discussed. My project focused on ways in which the publication process affected books written by non-white authors in the UK, and I interviewed authors and editors on this theme. My first attempt to really get back into the material will be at the August IRSCL conference in Germany, which will focus on cultural diversity and children's literature.

But I'm thinking now about the lack of attention to children's literature academic scholarship outside of our own community. English Literature scholars do get more public play, and authors like David Lodge and A.S. Byatt bring that world to life through fiction. It may be a good thing, as generally I've found that children's literature scholars are a friendly and open group. People like Peter Hunt, who are giants in our field, are approachable in a way I wouldn't expect equivalent bigwigs to be in other academic contexts.

Still, it's refreshing to see acknowledgement in a national UK newspaper that this path exists, and that it can be important for society. I have my own questions about the academic path and how much it engages with or participates in the "real world." But mostly, I feel that study and scholarship are key parts of our society, and enjoy being connected to that.