An Appreciation of Children's Literature

Last night I saw my fourth Bath Children's Literature Festival talk, this one was all about how brilliant children's writing is. For those of you who didn't know that... it's a fact. A great panel led by editor Danny Hahn who was joined by authors David Almond [the man who has won pretty much everything], Sally Gardner and Pushkin Press publisher Adam Freudenheim.

There were lots of great points made, but again I'm going to streamline them so as not to waffle... yes, yes we all know I'm going to do that anyway.

Listening to how Adam decided to launch the Pushkin Press children's list was one of the most interesting things. He was originally working with Penguin Classics and a lot of the work involved in that was translating books for the range. Looking at the range of children's books there are these days very few are translated from other languages compared to adult fiction, which in itself has very few translated books. So many fantastic stories are being overlooked because of this point, and when he joined Pushkin this was one of the things he wanted to change. Many people came to him and recommended titles that could be included and in particular The Letter for the King came to his attention. Translated into several languages already and well received in all, it had never be published in English, and so began the wonderful Pushkin Children's Books list that we see today.

It was also lovely to see that even authors are curious readers. After they'd talked about Pushkin the conversation moved on, but Sally Gardner was quick to engage in some whispering and managed to procure the copy of The Letter for the King that Adam had brought out of his bag. I have to say that I don't blame her as I got into work this morning and ordered a copy myself.

Yet another author who has a great origin story. Sally Gardner told us about how she used to make stories up to catalogues and make little plays up with a theatre set... by her own admission they sounded like they all ended with a lot of death. As if to prove my point from my first post about the festival, Sally was wearing some fantastic red shoes that put me in mind of the ruby slippers... so I'm almost certain now that to be a great author you need great shoes... or be a little bit nuts [in the best sense of the word].

Someone in the audience pointed out that books used to be a community experience and reading together was a much bigger thing. Everyone can enjoy a good children's book, they're exciting for the children and there's always something hidden that an adult reader can appreciate. That's never been more true than it is at the moment, often in the books I read I find myself laughing at something and wondering if kids would understand it. It just a great way to have books stay with you as you grow older.

Many adult readers are turning to what is considered young adult writing, possibly because the books are punchier and fast paced, and lead to quicker gratification when reading. I'm definitely not saying it's a bad thing because I love YA books, children's books in general are much more imaginative that the same genre for adults. As the age ranges change so do the length of chapters, shorter chapters help with that pace in the story. I like the way you can be pulled into a book when they're set out like this. I've always said that I love James Patterson books for this exact reason, I know I can get in to his books quickly because they have these quick changing scenes.

I've still got four more talks to go, but I'm having a break tonight... I think I really need the time off to get some of the things running through my head down on paper. If you're looking to get into the book world in some way shape or form you should definitely come to some of these shows, the authors, publishers and editors that attend love their work and will make you want to love it too.