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F" 2 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984

Lisbeth Zwerger 21 Cover Book Meet our cover artist On our cover this month we Opinion: Andersen and the 22 feature an illustration from Editor's Page 3 The Swineherd, a picture News and comment from the editor English Brian Alderson on English translations book version of the Andersen and illustrations of Andersen fairy tale by artist Lisbeth Children's Books and Zwerger. (Neugebauer Press, Politics News 0907234127, £3.95 from Robert Leeson puts the topic in 4 24 perspective A. and C. Black). We are James Watson and Jan Needle speaking 6 grateful to A. and C. Black for personally help in using this illustration. The roundel used on the Hans Reviews — Paperback 8 — the magazine of the School Bookshop Association Andersen pages is from the MARCH 1984 No. 25 wood engraving by Gwen Authorgraph No. 25 12 Raverat for Four Tales, Jan Mark ISSN: 0143-909X Editor: Pat Triggs translated by R. P. Keigwin, How to... Get Moving on a 14 Managing Editor: Richard Hill C.U.P. (1935). Designer: Alec Davis It and the Punch cartoon on Book Day Typesetting by: Curtis Typesetting, Ideas for getting started with planning Gloucester page 16 appear in Brian Printed by: Surrey Fine Art Press Ltd, Alderson's pamphlet Hans New York Diary 15 Red hi It, Surrey Christian Andersen and his The latest dispatch from John Mason ©School Bookshop Association 1984 Eventyr in England.

The Hans Andersen Award 16 can be obtained Patricia Crampton writes about judging on subscription by sending a cheque or an international award postal order to the Subscription Secretary, SBA, 1 Effingham Road, Lee, London Sound and Vision 17 SE12 8NZ. News of books on TV Tel: 01-852 4953 Annual subscription for six issues: Hans Christian Andersen 19 £6.00 UK, £9.00 overseas. is published by the Erik Haugaard on a classic storyteller Single copies direct from the SBA: School Bookshop £1.00 UK, £1.50 overseas. Andersen in Pictures 20 Association Ltd. A look at two new picture books Or use the Dial-a-Sub service on with the help of 01-852 49S3. Lloyds Bank, six times a year.

NATIONAL READING WEEK IN AID OF MENCAP READATHON

Do your pupils read as much as you would like them to? Does your school welcome ways to help a good cause? Readathon Patrons Honorary Chairman Encourage your pupils to develop a love of Martyn Goff Patrons reading and raise money for Me neap at Books for Students Limited David Bellamy Lord Asa Briggs the same time by participating in 58-64 Berrington Road Roald Dahl Sydenham Estate Matthew Evans Readathon '84. Leamington Spa Spike Milligan CV31 1NB Brian Rix Tel: Leamington Spa (0926) 29341 Sir Harry Secombe MENCAP

Readathon '84 will take place during the summer term 1984. It is very easy to organise; each child will be given a sponsorship form on which he/she will list the book or books he/she has chosen to read. Our school would like to participate in Readathon '84 All we need at this stage is an idea of how many children Number of classes to participate want to take part in this sponsored read. When we send you Approximate number oi children per class the sponsorship forms we will enclose posters for school use Organising teacher and full details of how to administer the scheme. School Tel. No.... If you think your school would like to take part in this exciting event and you would like further details, please Address complete and return the tear off slip below by April 30th at the latest to "Readathon" Books For Students, 58-64 Berrington Road, Sydenham Estate, Leamington Spa. Tel: 0926 29341. BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 3 EDITOR'S PAGE

Of course! We see it now. We should have Nor, we heard from Patricia Crampton, can three books have been chosen for an Honour known. The people to blame for the shortage you escape from politics when making an List: for writing, William Mayne's All the of books in schools are . . . the teachers. international award like the Hans Andersen King's Men (Cape), for illustration, Anthony And there we were thinking it had something Medal. (See page 16) IBBY, the Browne's Hansel and Gretel (Julia MacRae to do with central government funding. It International Board on Books for Young Books), for translation, Elizabeth Watson was the Secretary of State for Education, Sir People, which originated the award is Taylor, The Magic Inkstand from the Keith Joseph himself, who put us right. dedicated to promoting greater understanding German of Heinrich Seidel (Cape).) And to There was quite enough in the rate support among children of the world through celebrate the international flavour of this grant for local authorities to provide a children's books. As part of this IBBY issue we have on our cover the work of reasonable supply of books, he told the designated April 2nd, Hans Andersen's Lisbeth Zwerger, the Austrian nomination House of Commons Select Committee on birthday, International Children's Book Day, for the Illustrator's Medal. (See page 21) Education. But the teachers' unions asked and invites libraries, schools, organisations Lisbeth, we discovered, spends quite a lot of for more than was set aside in the budgets; all over the world to celebrate it in any way time here and very recently married an the local authorities accepted the claim and they choose. Why not join in? Englishman, John Rowe, whom she has that's where the book money went. 'It's been known for many years. At the moment they going on for years,' said Sir Keith. Perhaps Nominated are looking for somewhere to live in this it would be a good idea to separate teachers' country, though, John says, they will still be salaries from capitation? Well, no. Sir Keith The Hans Andersen Award is given, every spending a good deal of time in Vienna. thought that would require him to behave two years, to an author and an illustrator like a dictator. who is judged to have made a lasting contribution to literature for children and Words and Pictures A story which makes a neat (though not young people. It is a great honour to be Brian Alderson, well-known for speaking planned) complement to one of the main nominated. This BfK features two people his mind, is a useful irritant in the world of themes of this issue of BfK: Children's whose work will this year be the subject of children's books. (He's had some rude things Books and Politics. There's a growing consideration by Patricia Crampton's jury. to say about the SBA and BfK in the past.) debate about the appearance of so-called Jan Mark, our 25th Authorgraph (page 12), Andersen is one of his particular specialisms 'political' ideas in children's books. Is it has been selected as the British nomination and we decided to give him his head on what suitable? Is it advisable? A number of for the Author Medal. (Raymond Briggs is the English had done to these Danish recently published books deal explicitly with the nominee for the Illustrator's Medal, and stories. (See page 22) Brian, I think, like subjects like racism, terrorism, revolution Andersen himself perhaps, prefers his Tales and counter revolution, nuclear war and unillustrated, and lavish picture book versions nuclear disarmament, the police. Their titles of the stories don't usually arouse an and the names of their authors crop up enthusiastic response in him. That, of course, frequently in discussions on the subject. Are doesn't stop publishers bringing them out. these 'political' books? If so, what is a 'non- We feature the two newest (page 20) for you political' book? Time, we thought, to give to make up your own mind. The text for one the subject some space. of them, The Wild Swans, is by Naomi To start things off we asked Robert Leeson Lewis, whose versions come with the to take a general view and put the whole Alderson seal of approval. Naomi Lewis's issue in some kind of perspective. (See page own childhood recollections of Andersen 4) Bob Leeson is a thoughtful, balanced and suggest she too might find illustration informed commentator as well as a writer of superfluous. T had this little edition, no books which children of all ages enjoy space between the stories, thin paper, no reading. (Just out is Genie on the Loose, pictures. But I never realised at the time Hamish Hamilton, 0 241 11177 3, £5.75, a there were no pictures because I think they very entertaining sequel to The Third Class are so visual.' Genie, and promised for the autumn is a Her infectious and intense enthusiasm, like new survey of children's literature, from Erik Haugaard's, (page 18) should send Collins.) To follow his beginning we invited many of us adults scurrying back to two writers, James Watson and Jan Needle, Andersen. T read the stories constantly but who have frequently had the label 'political' now I'm seeing things in them which, of attached to their work to write about their course, I didn't see as a child. I discover approach to writing for children and young things all the time.' people and what they feel about 'politics and Children's Books'. (See page 6) I think CBY will be back you'll find what they have to say is very Lorenz Froelich, says Brian Alderson, is interesting and stimulating. Later this year perhaps the greatest of alt Andersen Good news about something else which we will be featuring an annotated list of illustrators, although his work was done should help us to new discoveries. The NBL books, fiction and non-fiction, which deal mainly for later, (ess well known stories. has announced that Children's Books of the with overtly political ideas. Meanwhile we'd This pen drawing to 'The Snail and the Year will be re-introduced from Summer be glad to hear what you think about this Rosebush' has been used in a new 1985 as an annual event. The catalogue will subject and of your experiences with specific translation Tales & Stories by Hans be published by the NBL with financial books. Christian Andersen by Patricia Conroy and support from the Eva Reckitt Trust, and the Sven Rossel (Washington University Press, selection of approximately 300 books will be The Marvellous Storyteller 0 295 95936 3, £9.50 paperback). made by Julia Eccleshare, currently a children's editor at Hamish Hamilton. One The second theme in this issue — Hans This volume has been prepared with adults in mind as much as children and is furnished departure from the old format is that books Christian Andersen — would be, we with prefatory material, notes and a will be chosen from those published between thought, a far cry from politics. We should April 1st and March 31st instead of from a have known that that particular subject is all bibliography. The preface on translation is full of interest but the actual performance by calendar year. The exhibition and pervasive. There was Naomi Lewis, one of publication, as before, will be in July/August. three Andersen experts in this issue, telling these two scholars is rather wooden and us about Andersen's shoemaker father, 'a lacking in verve. If you can't wait that long the next issue of free-thinker, a political rebel who h*j a bit BfK is our annual Picture Book Special and of genius'. He made toy theatres for his son includes a selection of the best of'84, so far. and was perhaps partly responsible for See you then. Andersen's totally original vision, 'his ability to see the comedy of life and express it in terms of the kitchen and the toy cupboard, giving life to spoons and darning needles'. 4 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984

"Neither traditionally, nor rationally is there a case for saying that politics are alien to children's literature." Robert Leeson considers the idea of

'Children's books seem to be very political these days', I show for example, police struggling with pickets or football fans. overheard someone remark at a conference. I think I know But if the set is left on for 20 minutes longer, the early evening what they were talking about. In the past year we have had news will reveal all. novels giving the once over to the police, the army, This is not to say the BBC is an ass, but to say that the notion of dictatorship, indoctrination, disarmament, nationalism, 'children' and 'children's books' as a single uniformly protected direct action and hijacking. area, like a nature reserve, is not a viable proposition. Nor is it a desirable one, in my opinion. The readership of these books is not an adult audience, it is not any audience. This is not a free for What did this person mean, though? I could only guess. The tone all — I write what I please and scream censorship if you object. did not suggest approval, but rather what would Mole and Pooh But neither is it a 'no go' area. think about all this? The notion of children's books as a 'no go' area, is not as Part of the problem is what do we mean by children's books? The traditional as some might think. Nor is the notion of children's field is vast. It includes reading matter for a tremendous age books as a suitable place for the dramatisation of fundamental range, from those just walking and talking, to those breaking the ideas of justice, liberty, wealth, poverty, something thought up barriers of the age of consent, the driving licence, the dole giro by late 20th century trendies. and the vote. And it is not always easy to determine where one Two hundred years ago, 150 years ago, it was not unusual for sort of young person gives way to another, not in a world of writers of children's books to deal with such matters as slavery, instant communication to the heart of the family home. land enclosure, the follies of the rich and idle, and the wickedness The BBC lays down that John Craven's Newsround should not of war. One magazine complained that the villains were too often BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 5 grasping landlords or cruel workhouse overseers. But these Humanity, the raw material of children's books, can thus matters since they were part of life, were a legitimate source of become politics. In these times, to remain human, to share the drama for stories. right to be human with every creature in the world, may well be During Victorian times, with the development of a 'nursery' 'political'. And if we do not involve the younger generation in literature, some subjects became taboo, but the best authors consideration of ideas about the way the world goes, while they considered the larger world to be their parish. In the so-called are growing up, what sort of adults will they make? First Golden Age of late 19th century, writers like George Neither traditionally, nor rationally is there a case for saying that MacDonald and Edith Nesbit had no hesitation in discussing politics are alien to children's literature. What counts is what is what some might think to be very political matters. Some Nesbit the writer conveying, realistically, fantastically, consciously or admirers might be surprised to hear, in The Amulet, the unconsciously. If one were to take the writers whose work I have assertion that the vote is given to the poor to keep them quiet (and mentioned, specifically or in passing, and apply the Gallup Poll this from the mouth of a child, too). to them, some would fall to the left some to the right and some Only in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, did the idea of a completely among the don't knows. But what they believe in, their world protected literature, with the centre of gravity for suitability view, is expressed in their writing. round about the 8-10 age range, become dominant. When Enid What then should the reader, the intermediary, parent, teacher, Blyton died, the Daily Mail, looking back on the near 50 years librarian, expect of them? of her writing career praised her because whatever went on in the I think, first, that they aim for the truth. Any writer who says 'I world, her books remained the same. show the world as it is', is, of course, guilty of enormous conceit. Yet it is also recognised that this period was a low point in the The 'world as it is' is far too complex for any of us to capture. But history of the literature. It recovered its standards and its vigour we must and do seek honestly to show what makes people tick, after the Second World War. what makes them laugh or cry, love or hate, suffer or die. This was when we began to see historical novels about real Growing up is a matter of striving and learning. Adults who look history and people, not as someone once remarked, about back carefully at their own lives will recall how much they 'armies composed entirely of officers'; school stories about real learned, how much they were encouraged, at second hand, by a schools, and family novels about real homes, of every kind, not writer whom they never met, but who once, in a flash, made just the Christopher Robin plus Nannie sort. While on this topic, something real and clear for them, for the first time. Or, along one must recall that the bizarre restriction of the school story to with other writers, helped his readers to make up their own minds the subject of private boarding schools, conveyed a message about things, a vital part of the process of growing up. (Like the (that other schools and children don't count) which is intensely 'take nothing for granted' message of'Alice' for instance). 'political'. Thus a writer may take any issue and say something of value to a young audience. If the writer, however, bends events, characters, Ah, some will say, you are discussing realist books. And of suppresses crucial information about them, to achieve a par- course, there must be such, but the true heart of children's ticular end, then both aesthetic and moral alarm bells start to literature is the fantasy, wizards, giants, enchantments and all ring. that, not social issues. Beware fantasy! Fantasy is the most philosophical, the most Whether taken from the large world of 'polities' or the small ideological, the most political of forms of writing. It is in fantasy, world of family or friends, the issues in any story eventually boil in the creation of other worlds in the author's imagination that down to the most fundamental moral questions, not so much Left ideas about the real world, consciously or unconsciously, have or Right, as right or wrong. It is the moral heart of the book which the freest play. And it is from fantasy that the young reader may determines whether we value it, not the way we think the author most readily, in the long term, absorb ideas about how the world votes. ought to be. This is true of Thackeray, Nesbit, MacDonald. It is On a personal note, when children read my books, I am being also (Sorry Mole) true about Kenneth Grahame. If you think taken into the home, along with the parent. I have ideas, an Wind in the Willows is an innocent tale of animals, read Peter outlook, a sense of justice, a wish that human beings should work Green's biography and get a sense of the inner social fears of together for the good of all, and a knowledge that they don't class struggle and disorder, of an author who was also Secretary always; an experience of life, the funny and the not so funny side. of the Bank of England. It is true of C. S. Lewis, J. P. Martin, It's something I share with many parents and teachers. As a Richard Adams, and any number of others. writer I offer it to their children without taking liberties. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the writer must be A fantasy which makes an impact must be full of ideas. Arch judged not on the theme, but on what the writer says. fantasist Lewis Carroll deliberately makes his heroine question and overturn all she had been told. If there is a subversive book As a citizen the writer may be active in politics, which are a (or books, rather) it is the Alice saga. compromise between certain groups of human beings, banded together as they see it to set matters right. Politics in that sense do Lewis Carroll a secret Red? Well, it is true that he did believe, in not make books. But the root and raw material of politics and advance of most dons, that women should have the right to go to literature are the same. The writers' words, like the political university. But no. It is a common error among those who favour actions of their fellow citizens must ultimately be judged by the the status quo, that politics equals subversion, or that anything same human, moral standards. that disturbs them is 'polities' while what they believe is simply natural. A concern at the way the world goes is a sure sign that the heart of children's literature is alive and beating strongly. • Once, during a radio interview, I praised Winifred Cawley's Gran at Coalgate, the story of a girl staying with her grand- mother during the General Strike. 'Oh', interrupted the interviewer, 'I don't think children want to read about polities'. When people say 'children don't want to read . . .' they mean 'I don't think they ought to read . . .' In fact, though, Winifred Cawley was writing a personal story, and using the General Strike as a natural backdrop to it. Now the Robert Leeson has written nineteen books for young people from 8-18 General Strike is of great importance in the history of many years of age. Among these are historical novels like Bess (Fontana working class people. On the millions who lived in mining areas Lions, 0 00 672218 0, £1.25) with its strong female central character, during the 1920s and 1930s, it had a far greater impact than say, short compelling reads like The Demon Bike Rider (Fontana Lions, for example, the Coronation. Yet had I cited a book about a girl 0 00 671320 3, £1.00), realistic teenage fiction — It's My Life coming to London during the Coronation, I doubt if any (Fontana Lions, 000 6717 83 7,£1.25), and of course the Grange Hill interviewing eyebrows would have been raised. The Crown, the stories. His latest book is Genie on the Loose (Hamish Hamilton, monarch are above politics, the miners, the unions are not. 0 241 11177 3, £5.75 and Fontana Lions, 0 00 672294 6, £1.25), a sequel to the much enjoyed The Third Class Genie. Yet is the Queen above politics? Earlier this year she suggested He is also a critic and lecturer on children's literature and for many years that there was an unacceptable gap between rich and poor was Children's Editor of the Morning Star. Due to be published this nations. That was a basically human conclusion that anyone autumn (by Collins) is his latest book of criticism provisionally entitled working in the field of children's literature would regard as After the Golden Age — thoughts on fiction forthe young, past, present unexceptional. In fact she was attacked by Enoch Powell and the and future. Editor of The Times for an ill-advised intrusion into politics. 6 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 TWO WRITERS "Not to write 'politically' would be to bury the values one cherishes." James Watson on making connections between the unique and the universal.

For me, writing is an interaction underlying philosophy is that, because history to understand the connection between the between author and reader, a sharing of is dead (or even bunk, as Henry Ford would happiness of some and the misery of others; things held close to heart and mind. To have it) and indeed because it is chiefly to feel a sense of solidarity — if that is not begin with, I wrote stories that would about the assertion and dominance of too emotively political a term — with others. be sufficiently exciting to stir in the hierarchies (or simply larger-than-life It is that which makes The Freedom Tree personalities such as Henry VIII and his and Talking in Whispers political. They are young reader something of my own dreadfully abused wives), connections with fascination for history. I set quick- about uniqueness but they are concerned the way things are today need never be with universals: of justice and commonality. moving adventures in vivid historical made. That, however, is bunk. settings such as the Florence of My fear is that in the age of TINA the Of the many pernicious doctrines that have young westerner might assume that because Leonardo, in Sign of the Swallow, or gathered like carrion on the rooftop of 1984, the persecuted have always been persecuted among the Minoan splendours of the one deserving the first dose of buckshot they can somehow tolerate persecution Knossos in The Bull Leapers. The aim is TINA: the notion that There Is No enough for a general fuss not to be made of was to thrill and at the same time sow Alternative may strictly relate to monetarist it. Such an attitude is political, albeit by a seed-trail in the reader's imagination, dogma, but the danger is that the attitude is default or ignorance, and the end of that ready to germinate when he or she contagious. Once we admit that 'there is particular road — as a knowledge of history looked into the past with a more nothing we can do about anything', we are will graphically remind us — is the searching eye. done for — nothing we can do about the concentration camp and the gas chamber. suffering of others, nothing we can do about My Rubber Truncheon Award for the most That old triple alliance of objectives — to arrest without trial, about torture, about disgraceful quotation of 1983 goes to Mr entertain, to inform and (possibly) to death squads, about starvation. That is the Norman Tebbit who justified his decision educate — forms a reasonable basis for sense of history some carry about with them: not to ban the British export of torture communication over distance and between it was always like this, so carry on equipment on the grounds that if we didn't strangers. For the novel, however, it leaves regardless. sell the stuff, others would. In the context of out the crucial role of being in there; of that kind of public morality, not to write being it. In my Spanish Civil War story, These are days of pessimism, for TINA rules; yet what sustains my belief — as an 'politically' would be to bury the values one The Freedom Tree, the central characters, cherishes. It would leave the stage clear for Will and Griff, find themselves in the cold, individual and as a writer — that TINA need not be the measure of history or the pragmatists. Only at the entrepreneur's rat-infested trenches of the Aragon front, convenience would two and two make four. caught in a blazing cross-fire. Suddenly, in order of the day, is a confidence in the the pitch darkness, they are eyeball to staying-power of certain fundamental values. In conclusion, a reminder to myself: to eyeball with a youth of their own age from That staying-power lies with people who, abandon, bypass or censor values as the the enemy side, as terrified as they are. through commitment that is as natural to bedrock of writerly motivation would be a them as breathing or through convictions calamity; one of equal severity would be to What happens next, and how it affects the forged by circumstance, sacrifice personal forget that novels are stories about people, two friends, their relationship, their attitudes safety in the cause of human rights. The not vehicles of rhetoric populated with to the conflict and to death is unique to them tenacity of such pe.ople in times of crisis, cardboard cut-outs representing types or and, I hope, to the reader. For a split faced often by overwhelming odds, is the beliefs. If the pages don't keep turning, the second, if the illusion has been well enough source of inspiration for The Freedom Tree sharing is at an end. In competition with the staged, the reader is the experience: the and my latest book, Talking in Whispers. easy flow of television narratives, the printed mediation of the author, words and paper are word remains the medium that cuts deeper forgotten in the same way that, with a film, In 'Whispers' 16-year-old Andres falls into the hands of the torturers. Partly through his and sticks longer — yet only if it is given a the reality of celluloid, screen and light gives chance. place to a reality of direct identification. courage, partly through fortuitous circumstance, the torturers fail to extract the In Whispers, Andres witnesses the burning If that amounts to authorial power, then the information they require from him; but most of his father's and his own books. The irony is that the author rarely if ever knows importantly, they fail to destroy his spirit. flames lick indiscriminately at philosophical what response there has been to that power. One of the interrogators, the Hog, flings off tomes and children's books alike. Today's Yet the writer is not only talking to, sharing all control: 'He seized Andres. He roared writer is faced with the challenge of with, the reader, but is undergoing his or her not as the hog, not as the hyena but as the producing books riveting enough to hold own route to discovery. To be interested in bull. He seized Andres as if suddenly he attention in face of mass media competition. history is but a small step to the altogether were all prisoners, as if he represented every His or her aspiration might also be to write more dynamic condition of recognising — wrong answer, every defiant spirit, every act books good enough for burning. • and perhaps developing — a sense of of simple courage, every refusal to betray a history. loved one, every resistance to tyranny. He beat him. He dragged him. And yet it was James Watson's Talking in Whispers Without a sense of history it is difficult, in (Gollancz, 0 575 03272 3, £5.95), set in my view, to make sense of the present. his own cries which were the loudest, his own wailing; his boundless despair.' That is contemporary Chile, was a winner of The Whoever believes that history does not arguably the testament of humanity's faith in Other Award in 1983. His previous novels repeat itself is absolutely right if he or she the triumph of good over evil. for young readers have been Sign of the sticks to the pedantry of detail. Hitler was Yet, it might be asked — for the young Swallow, The Bull Leapers, Legion of the unique; Franco was unique; the bombing of reader? If it were a universally observed White Tiger and The Freedom Tree. He Guernica was unique, and President right that children were protected from the has also written, and had broadcast by the Pinochet of Chile is unique. Tyranny, realities of the adult world, privileged to BBC, four 'adult' radio plays. however, is not unique; nor are poverty, escape the hardships suffered by their A teacher in further education, he was for racialism, sexism or exploitation. That much parents, then it would be perfectly the past three years a member of the British we can learn from history, though the root acceptable to have a children's literature Amnesty Education Project and produced causes of such phenomena are admittedly wholly given over to the dreamland of one of the Project's recently published units, less the task of the novelist to explain than messing about in boats on languid rivers and on Censorship, He has latterly taken a that of philosophers, historians, sociologists finding secret messages in bottles. Children, working holiday from fiction to co-author A and political scientists. though, are and have always been among Dictionary of Communication & Media It has often been a source of mild surprise to history's prime victims. The children of El Studies to be published this year by Edward me to learn that while the study of politics in Salvador, Eritrea, Brazil, Indonesia etc. etc. Arnold. know that well enough. school is seen by many as unsuitable fare for Talking in Whispers is due to appear in education in a democracy, history is bread Our own children have generally been more Fontana paperback in 1984 and is to be and butter to the curriculum. How history fortunate: all the more reason for them, I published in the US by Knopf-Pantheon. can be expected to be taught without believe, to at least know of the plight of their reference to politics is beyond me, unless the peers; to sympathise, to empathise, eventually BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 7 SPEAKING PERSONALLY 'The classic English children's book is political; mine are not." Jan Needle on representing the world as he knows it.

The classic English children's book But the point is this: the criteria by which don't think I am. Let me give you a final seems to me to be deeply political. It is these things are judged fit perfectly with the example. Kenneth Grahame wrote The written by a middle-class person, about ground rules I laid out. The awards circus is Wind in the Willows (which is one of my a sub-section of the sub-section of society favourite books; I love it). Grahame was not middle-class people, for middle-class that some people look upon, and refer to, as being political, but he mirrored his own people. Its politics is hence the children's book mafia. Working honestly, world unconsciously: a world in which the unconscious, inevitable, and all- most of them, for what they perceive as the very rich enjoyed themselves in absurdly pervasive. And because most adults common good. selfish ways and the very poor were who are actively involved with the Having made this rather amazing claim that humiliated or suffered — and in any case children's book — as readers, the classic (or even the average) English misbehaved. I wrote Wild Wood, in which publishers and critics — are very children's book is political, let me raise the the antics of Toad and his friends are seen similar in background, culture and eyebrows of those who know and love (to through the eyes of the stoats, the ferrets and outlook to the people who write it, its categorise) my work even further by the weasels — the starving rural poor. It is a politics are invisible. claiming that mine are not. I'm not talking book about politics, unlike Grahame's, but it about all my books (some are merely jolly, is still not a political book, God forbid. And You will note, I hope, that I referred to the or adventures, or just plain daft), but just the even the Daily Telegraph 'loved every 'English' children's book, not the 'British'. ones that are often dubbed 'social realistic', word'! This, I think, makes my point. For not only like Albeson and the Germans, My Mate We don't need more politics in children's do the great majority of British children's Shofiq, A Sense of Shame, Piggy in the literature, we need less. If there were more books come from a tiny group of like-minded Middle and the new one, A Pitiful Place. people like me writing more books like some and like-cultured people, but they reflect an True, they deal with subjects like racism, of mine, they would cease to be Englishness that is mind-bpgglingly exclusive. police brutality, and the Falklands conflict, 'controversial'. Blow the trumpets: and let Fashionable, now, to pop in the odd (often which might reasonably be seen to be the the ghetto walls come tumbling down.* very odd!) black or Asian character — after stuff of politics. But they offer no 'line', they all, one has to be seen to be 'liberal'. But have no discernible tendency, they are in tokenism aside, the world of children's books absolutely no way didactic. Most of all (as is still overwhelmingly the world of at least one of my publishers would sadly Ransome, de Selincourt, Brazil, Blyton, Old say) they do not bestow upon the child Auntie Thomasina Cobley and all. It is reader an optimism that I, as an adult, ghetto fiction in which the ghetto, peculiarly, believe to be false. It is this false optimism has the power to dominate the population as that I hold to be the fundamental political a whole. act in the sort of book I have been talking Question: Why is this 'ghetto' so powerful, about. when the mass of the readership are not 'of But if the false optimism of the 'classic it? Answer: Because not only does it have a English children's book' is political, even if virtual monopoly, but our system of education unconscious, how can I claim to be non- is traditionally (and probably totally political by knowingly refusing to perpetuate unconsciously, by now) geared to the the same lie — while deliberately choosing propagation of a set of values which are not subjects which may be called the stuff of 'of the majority of those who receive it. politics to boot? Simply like this: I know Even those (many) teachers who crave where I come from, and I know where I am. sufficient alternative material, are operating Within the (desperate) limitations of fiction- an exam-oriented curriculum. And there writing, I write about people and events aren't any questions on Grange Hill on those which I know. There is no narrow or papers! identifiable political tendency in my books Illustration: One of my books for younger because I do not have one. And I don't write children, Losers Weepers, was heavily my kind of books as an antidote, I write criticised in the Sunday Times because the because they represent the world as I believe dialogue in it is rendered in a (rather in it. generalised) Northern dialect. The reviewer I suspect many people may think I'm being thought it a pity, because it meant 'most disingenuous — or even mendacious; but I children would not be able to understand it'. Being originally from the South, I write about half my books in (equally generalised) Southern speech. No one's told me off so far, surprise surprise. Jan Needle has written sixteen books, most of them for By a similar process, I think, the books children, and many of them extremely controversial. But which tend to win 'literary' awards reflect a view of 'literature' which has nothing to do he vigorously rejects the idea of being a 'political' writer. with the taste of their intended audience, but This year has already seen Great Days at Grange Hill a great deal to do with the Victorian (and and Tucker's Luck (novels for Fontana Lions based on therefore, for us new-Elizabethans, a the TV series) hit the bookstalls. This month they are political) desire to 'improve' the young. If the dichotomy were not so sad, it would be joined by a joke-book, We Are the Champions, (Piccolo, funny: on the one hand concerned adults are 0 330 21843 7, 95p) and a volume of stories A Pitiful trying to encourage children to read, and on Place (Deutsch, 0233 97560 8, £4.95) very much in the the other they are actively disapproving of, if tradition of A Sense of Shame and Piggy in the Middle. not actively suppressing, the very books which are enjoyed and chosen by kids. It's a Jan says the stories had a very stormy passage before good job there is not an equally powerful publication; our advice is not to miss them if you care to coterie of mathematicians who disapprove of offer young adults an unblinking and uncompromising computers with some equally strange (but, to view of some aspects of our current society, written with them, plausible) rationale. irony, compassion and anger. The above is not, incidentally, sour grapes. I've come as close as a toucher to winning two of the big awards, as well as an Other. 8 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984

Reviews of paperback fiction are grouped for convenience under teaching range. Books and children being varied and adaptable, we suggest you look either side of your area. More detailed recom- REVIEWS mendation for use can be found within the reviews. Nursery/Infants

more sympathetic when he l few'.:; irtamtt ;wi.J iaaattf: meets a bald hedgehog. His «;>:; !&:;« tfs good deed in finding and making a wig for the Reviewers unfortunate hedgehog is repaid in this issue in the shape of a bicycle which enables him to become a hero with his fellow frogs. Such is the deft touch of the artist that humour and pathos leap from every page of this delightful book which deserves a place in Colin Mills is in the every primary classroom. Division of Teaching JB Studies at Worcester College where he helps1 The Bear's Toothache run a Diploma in 416 45240 X ' Jill Bennett is in Children's Literature. charge of a Reading Cathy Lister teaches He's taught in a Where Can an Centre in Middlesex. in a middle school in comprehensive school, She is the compiler of Staffordshire, with a primary school and Elephant Hide? responsibility for I Can Touch Learning to Read with worked in radio. 416452507 Picture Books and of English and Language 0 00 662055 8 David McPhail, Magnet several anthologies of across the Curriculum. £1.35 each poetry for infants, 1 Can Smell and Taste Literary Editor of Child 0 00 662056 6 In an easy-to-read story, the Education and on the Peter Curry, Picture dream and fantasy^world of a Board of the SBA. Lions, £1.25 each A further pair of Curry's books for the under fives which aim to stimulate an interest in the senses. The simple pictures — David Bennett (no large bold blocks of colour Bill Boyle teaches in relation to Jill) is a outlined in black — are Middle School in Wirral. former librarian and supported and extended by a He was founding currently Head of first person narrative in Deputy Editor of Junior English in a Nottingham- carefully chosen words that Education, shire secondary school. aptly convey the sensual nature of the subjects. Topsy Turvy Tales Leila Berg, Magnet, small boy seemingly becomes Hide? Morris's size is a 0416459706, £1.25 reality when he finds a bear problem whenever he tries to with toothache outside his play his favourite game, hide A re-issue of a collection of bedroom window. His effort to and seek; there's just nowhere tales for reading aloud to the effect a cure reduce the kitchen he cannot be seen. Various very young, originally entitled and bedroom to a shambles animals offer advice but whilst Folk Tales for Reading and but the troublesome tooth is appropriate for the adviser none Telling this book has long finally extracted and hidden is effective for an elephant, till been a reliable source for story safely under the pillow. his sub-aquatic resting place time in the infant classroom Gilbert and the and an untimely sneeze save and since the demise of the There are shades of Sendak in Piccolo edition a paperback Bicycle the shadowy pictures whose him from the hunters. And that calls for a celebration — hide has not been available; so this Jack Harvey, Hippo, colours heighten the mood and and seek of course! 'Magnet' is doubly attractive. 0590 70300 5, £1.25 impact of the nocturnal JB adventure. JB An enjoyable diversion but not Gilbert's lack of jumping In Where Can an Elephant a story with a lasting impact. prowess makes him all the JB Infant/Junior Ox-Cart Man Angry Arthur Donald Hall, pictures by Hiawyn Oram, pictures Barbara Cooney, Picture by Satoshi Kitamura, Puffin, 0 14050.441 9, Picture Puffin, £1.75 0 14050.426 5, £1.25 Set in 19th century rural New Deprived of his favourite T.V. England, this award winning programme, Arthur's anger picture book from The States knows no bounds. His fury gives a fascinating glimpse of a envelops first the house, then farmer's year in a byegone age the neighbourhood and then and shows how a whole family the universe and before finally is involved in the business of blowing itself out, he seems to survival. A book to extend have destroyed everything children's horizons in both except the safe haven of his place and time. All ages. own bed. JB BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 9

Yes. it does owe something to House has proved popular in who does not quite fit in to Sendak but this book has an its recent T.V. version and conventional expectations of a originality of its own and its this will be welcome to those farm pig. potential for helping children who enjoyed that. Well worth to come to terms with their serialising for six to nines. The Lively bunch of characters, emotions is immense. harsher edges aren't smoothed including Barnabus the Bull, JB over which is the sign of a fine Mistress Tabbicoat and Gregorious Goat. The writer writer. The pictures, poised Frog and Toad All and angular, are just right. has wit, style and an ability to Year CM involve readers and listeners unobtrusively, so that they 0 1403 1566 7 take the ironies of the tale. The Kitchen Warriors Days with Frog and A good find: splendid cover Joan Aiken, ill. Jo and pictures. CM Toad Worth, BBC/Knight, 0 1403 1567 5 0 340 33517 3, £1.25 Charlie, Emma & Arnold Lobel, Young 1 know of very few other Alberic Puffin (I Can Read), writers who can create £1.50 each Margaret Greaves, complex, fantastic worlds Magnet, 0 416 46990 6, Lobel's artistry and the winning which are accessible and £1.10 format of these books (spacious more sustained text than most coherent to older infants and text, sensitive attention to line picture books offer. Originally young juniors (I'm still thrilled When Charlie and Emma find and page breaks) combine to one of the 'Antelope' series and surprised when I read a 'tiny lizard' climbing out of a give five to eights a splendidly this tells of a boy's frantic Kingdom Under The Sea to hole in the road, little do they satisfying read. search for that elusive children). Here, easy surface know that they are about to ingredient needed to make the text and domestic settings fold make a dragon their pet, with Each of these has five self- hamburger that can save Mr up magic, imagery and a truly whom they will have all kinds contained stories, able to be Borthwick's business. poetic tale. of adventures. The episodic read in a manageable session. JB nature of this book for newly The patterns and shapes of A returning prince has to re- establish himself in his father's independent readers offers them Lobel's stories extend his Tottie: The Story of a suitable stopping points as well readers' competences and kingdom. My young listeners Dolls' House (6 to 8's) understood both the as an amusing but undemanding provide bridges from picture tale. " JB books to extended texts. In '. . Rumer Godden, ill. immediacy and the magical All Year', the seasons change Joanna Jamieson, Young elements of kitchen cupboards throughout the stories. Read Puffin, 0 1403 1675 2, and deep freezers: how well A Bad Case of Shivers from 'Days With . . .' Miss Aiken links the fabulous £1.00 to the ordinary. Animal Nonsense and encourage the young to Jonathan Allen, Magnet, talk about story-telling and Read this elegantly-presented A stunning tale. The listening. book before the children, if illustrations deserve sharing 0416 453600, £1.00 The pictures are pastel, you've time, and see how a and showing too. This assortment of alphabetic writer's craft can unfold a tale pastoral — without ever being CM puns, jokes and rhymes is one that — if less skilfully handled twee. Excellent collections. of those apparently CM — may seem precious, outdated Precisely Pig inconsequential books which The first chapters are teachers tend to disregard but The Perfect miniature masterpieces and Michael Berthoud, ill. which children delight in at Hamburger Miss Godden's language John Lawrence, Magnet, that stage when they have just ('Come fog, come fine, no one 0416 46160 3, £1.25 become independent readers. Alexander McCall could be unkind to Apple') The hero is one of those And it could be a boon for Smith, Puffin, gives children the sense of a teachers searching for material gentle, bygone age. quirky individuals who'll fit in 0 1403.1670 1, 95p well to the gallery of animals for older readers who don't The tale of Tottie and the five to nines know in their find reading easy let alone An immediately engaging story enjoyable. JB for those just going solo and Plantaganet family's move reading. He's the slightly with the confidence to tackle a from shoe box to palatial Dolls' eccentric, upper-crust 'gent' Junior/Middle

to be read aloud) in on the does help reluctant eight to In The Brownies story, Tracy tensions and ambiguities (the elevens in and along in my learns to make the best of 'it could have been this way' experience. things (even though she's broken her leg and has to miss implicit in all narrative). Middle I lead them on later to Gene juniors and upwards who know the Pack holiday). Fortitude Kemp, for Ms Eadington, at wins through. In Cubs . . , the originals and can see the her best, has the same ear for fun in exploiting form will Snowy, who's a perfect Cub dialogue and, when the action want these for their own. As and gets it all right first time, slows down, she can catch the always, Dahl knows how to is contrasted with Nobby tunes of junior school life. CM get readers on his side ('I say who's the Pack clown. again, how would you feel?') Both have a sense of fun, but "€• and Blake's pictures match the The Brownies in ':*-'. *^£ there's a didactic tone — and mayhem. Try it in the Hospital they're rather 'adults' eye staffroom. CM Pamela Sykes, Beaver, views' of children. But I know 009 9332302, 95p one or two readers of nine or Jonny Briggs and ten who'll enjoy them on the the Jubilee Concert Cubs with a way to more stirring things. Joan Eadington, ill. Difference CM 'Off with her head.' The Prince William Marshall, BBC/ despatches an Ugiy Sister, Dahl Stephen Andrews, McGurk and the style, in Cinderella from Knight, 0 340 34837 2, Beaver, 009 9332205, Revolting Rhymes £1.25 95p Lost Atoll Roald Dahl, ill. Quentin Favourite 'Jackanory' character Osmar White, ill. Jeff Both these writers overcome Hook, Puffin, Blake, Picture Puffins, returns, this time school being the most difficult parts of the setting of a tale involving a plotting (bringing the characters 0 1403 16116, 95p 0 14050 423 0, £1.50 concert. The tensions, together and giving them a Sophisticated juniors who excitement and the sense of Dahl's linguistic wizardry is shared lore and language) by enjoyed the same writer's here exploited to the full in 'anything could happen' that setting the stories in contexts these richly ironic and surrounds such events will be Super Roo of Mungalongaloo where roles are well-defined need to find this. irreverent pastiches of six well- familiar. There's a hint of the and grown-ups' expectations known fairy stories. Dahl is 'formula' in the put-upon are clear. Intrepid explorer Dr. A. A. A. letting his listeners (they need teachers — but the predictability McGurk and Camel Cathie 10 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984

Khan have hair-raising turn into a magic land in her school is to be combined with same recipe as the earlier adventures on Pacific crossing. mind. This time imagination King's Road and the old school epics. 'Mak the strong one, Remember, if you find the becomes 'reality'. She becomes knocked down. The children Tsu the cool one, Vawn the action breathless, that your involved with the time gypsies, set out to save Bennett's and instinctive one, Ispex the youngsters gained their earliest and her own mis e 17 is forgotten succeed in enlisting the help of solemnly clever one.' Yes, understandings of narrative as as she endeavours to help the Press. There are lots of they're still all here, folks, much from Dr. Who as from them back to their own time. antics but told in a rather flat goodness knows how after the books they've read in This is a superb story, highly childish dialogue which encountering strange worlds, a schools. priased by all the children who prevents real involvement. The derelict spaceship, a jungle The writer respects his readers have tried it. Helen Creswell title and cover will sell copies planet, plus their implacable and expects them to be in tune has created a world where the but many readers will be enemy the Emperor of with his jokey, journalistic reader can worry, fuss and plot disappointed. CL Tyrannopolis (where?). Epsilon style: are yours? with Polly. It is not an Cool for ever, I say, so there. CM intangible, fairy world, for Arthur and the Marvellous rubbish which Polly's problems are real, doesn't pretend to be anything substantial, partly familiar: a Purple Panic else. ' BB The Voice from cross and ragged granny, a Alan Coren, Puffin, Nowhere baby with nowhere to sleep, a 0 1403 1362 1,£1.00 homeless dog and a mysterious Bill Butler, Knight man from whom all children To lie in your bath and have a Books, 0 340 35153 5, must keep well away. When purple face, tongue sticking £1.25 the time gypsies are safely out, peering at you through the home Polly's father comes lace curtains is not amusing. If Inoffensive, school kids as home too. Polly is secure you are Queen Victoria and detectives, mildly interesting, the face is that of Nelson on quite well written addition to again, 'secure in her dreams'. A deeply involving, satisfying his column at the other end of the hundreds of similar books book. Offer it to all top primary the Mall then you are certainly already on the 'kid lit' market. and middle school children. not amused. The reader Perhaps the real message — if Read aloud too. A TV version however is. Alan Coren there is one — from stories is promised soon. continues his stories of Arthur, such as these is contained in a CL the schoolboy who solves all quote from one of the Sherlock Holmes' most difficult characters. 'How many more The Little Vampire cases. Now he pursues and times have I got to tell you to captures the mysterious vandal stop this rubbish. I don't mind Moves In who is painting all England's you playing detective games if Angela Sommer- greatest monuments purple and you must. If the crook you're Bodenburg, Hippo, leaving behind contemptuous after is an adult, the chances messages. are that he's vicious and 059070298 X, £1.00 dangerous.' Well it was never Not the first book I have read The Arthur books are always like that when the Famous about miniature and harmless favourites. Children recognise Five were on the trail of the vampires in recent times. Is that they do not have to be The Skiver's Guide 'baddies', mind you Ronald there some attempt to detract very accomplished readers to Reagan was playing cowboys from video-nasties by complete a whole book so the Diana Wynne Jones, then. humanising the vampire? young and less able find them Knight Books, very acceptable. At the same More (if needed!) of the Vampires are in trouble when 0 340 33985 3, £1.25 they consort with humans. time older children with a Stanwick School Sleuths in developed sense of humour Lovely idea. As one of the The Nightmare Clowns Human children have much to worry about when they attempt recognise Alan Coren's skill as world's great skivers I resent (0 340 35152 7, £1.25). he parodies any cliche ever my secrets being revealed to BB to conceal child vampires in the basement. Very predictable, spoken or written. Young the world, but secretly admire cosy, satisfying, a lengthy but readers thus become older someone having the idea of The Secret World of easy read. Testers of ten and connoisseurs. There should be making money out of publishing eleven were enthusiastic but it a ready market in the a book about the subject. In Polly Flint fact, it's rather gratifying to Helen Creswell, Puffin, is unlikely that they will find it bookshop. Add one to the a memorable book. The library collection as well. find among the other great 0 1403 1542 X, £1.25 humorous cover with hints of CL skivers of history, Nero, Alfred the Great, Robert the Bruce Where can a small child find gore should make it easily saleable. CL and Albert Einstein, to whom comfort when she is forced to Star Stormers 5: I'm sure you could add a few live with an over-efficient, Volcano famous names yourself. unimaginative aunt, not Save Our School Sections which will repay knowing when her injured Nicholas Fisk, Knight Gillian Cross, Magnet, Books, 0 340 32093 1, close study are 'Golden Rules father and anxious mother will 0416 30110 X, £1.00 of Skiving' and 'How to tell return? Polly has a leaning £1.25 when Work is coming', and towards seeing things, an T couldn't get into this book. The Star Stormers and I have the three pages of'Common affinity for dreams and fantasy, It really is fictional', words of Excuses' should be compulsory and discovers a strange family met before, and despite the a twelve year old tester. 'This hammer blows of the violent rote learning for all would-be and even stranger world to book starts too quickly and skivers. For the outlay of console her. energy of the action, ceaseless isn't very adventurous' — in some chapters, I emerged to £1.25 you gain the key to a In a park near Aunt Em's eleven year old. fight another day. This fifth lifetime of skiving, it must be there is a lake and a wood, a The plot is a very modern one. (and final, oh no!) adventure is the bargain of the year. world that Polly can easily Hard times mean that Bennett constructed from much the BB Middle/Secondary

Fast from the Gate come in for treatment here as most; a kind of antidote in Michael Hardcastle, Lee Parnaby battles it out fiction to all those motorcycle along with the rest of them. In magazines and non-fiction Magnet, 0 416 47090 4, this sequel to Roar to Victory books that they pore over so £1.00 Lee loses his own bike when devotedly? Out of the wide range of chasing a stray donkey, only to DB popular pursuits for young retrieve it from local baddies people, sport is probably the with the help of Cousin Joanne who adds the female interest. Sinister Stories least well represented in young ed. Jean Russell, fiction, except by Mr. It's a familiar mix of fast Hardcastle, who picks up some moving detail about the sport, Magnet, 0 416 46120 4. of the least written-about stereotyped baddies, desperate £1.25 situations that always have a activities and weaves them into It is uncommon to come across fast-moving, popularist stories. desperate remedy and an honourable,, sporting hero. One such a consistently good Motorbikes and Motocross would expect boys to enjoy it collection of short stories, but BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 11

an old cottage for the new passages in The Sylvia Game. story of mystery and legend. occupants — the Harrisons. For example, the food at the Just as the Great Selkie entices This uncorks Kempe; a Fairview Hotel 'which had away beautiful girls so this tale medieval, meddling sorcerer, probably finished off the entices the reader on, as who is determined to exert his weaker visitors. Meat was anxious as the characters in past influence on the present covered with a thick brown the story to solve the mystery with frustrating effects for all sauce, and fish with a thick of the stranger who comes to concerned, especially his white sauce, and chicken by a them from the sea. Robbie's young reluctant apprentice combination of the two'. grandfather is in touch with the James. A very significant tale, Unfortunately these brief magic of the islands' legends. appearing for the first time in When he dies it is up to Puffin as Penelope Lively highlights cannot carry the story and are peripheral to the Robbie to convince his family 'transfers' from Piccolo. that the dashing stranger will DB action, failing to disguise the inherent lack of quality or ensnare his sister; that the Apollo the Golden ingenuity in the writing. Besides happiness he has brought is to which Emily is so boring that be short-lived. God no self-respecting child will I often find it difficult to Doris Gates, Puffin, tolerate her past the first persuade children to try Mollie 0 1403 1647 7, £1.50 twenty pages. Who is Sylvia? Hunter. The themes she writes Who cares? BB about can appear too much of All the tales of Apollo put a challenge but those who are together in some sort of Robin of Sherwood persuaded often become chronological order. This book devoted readers. A book you then with contributors like Jan was emphatically rejected by a Richard Carpenter, variety of testers varying in may need to 'sell', but well Mark, Marjorie Darke and Puffin, 0 1403.16906, worth it. CL Patricia Miles one should age and ability across the £1.25 expect good reading. middle school. The only praise The Homeward was for the rather unusual Producing a new version of the As an introduction to the black and white wash Robin Hood legend to succeed Bounders authors these tales would serve illustrations by Constantinos the countless earlier stories, Diana Wynne Jones, well — the zany, magic and Coconis. These drawings are a must have been a thankless Magnet, 0416 22940 9, upside-downness of Aiken — strange cross between the task, but Richard Carpenter £1.50 '"What shall we do about the symbolic art of ancient Greece manages to give some new Unicorn? Cousin Elspeth and modern poster art. There slants to this most traditional Diana Wynne Jones writes doesn't approve of keeping are hints of the eerie and of English adventures. A some of the most imaginative pets.'"; the gently humorous unpleasant about them which welcome prologue ties in the and intriguing fantasy available, dialogue of Mark — '". . . seemed to intrigue the children. Loxley antecedents to set the and at the same time it can be some of those carols are six scene for Robin's continual some of the most complex. hundred years old." "So are The stories were originally told feud with the Norman This stimulating offering is no the carol singers," said Mum.'; by Doris Gates to children at overlords, and the evocation of exception. It mingles the are but two examples in this story-telling sessions in a the medieval obsession with Promethean legend with war fittingly excellent collection by Californian library. The telling the supernatural and its gaming, ley lines and I know the late Jean Russell, which rather than reading style attendant superstitions firmly not what else. Jamie, a kind of deserves a place in most remains; the tone implies group places the tale in its historical Heracles figure is a pawn in secondary classrooms as an involvement, and testers found context. Carpenter's version is the games played by 'Them' antidote to the third-rate gothic it difficult to become involved. spare and quick in its on their boards in the glass horror tales that abound One of a series about Greek movement of plot and action, places, but then so is everyone elsewhere. DB myths; a slim, tempting volume as befits its origin as a else a pawn. What makes the which may serve better as a television script, but well hero and his future companions The Ghost of handbook for teachers and fleshed by the author's gift for exceptional is that they are description. There are Thomas Kempe other tellers of tales rather randoms, who may fairly freely than as an accessible text for continually new generations of tread the bounds between the Penelope Lively, young readers. youngsters meeting the story games (or universes) and, if Puffin, 0 1403 1496 2, CL for the first time and this they do not lose hope, may £1.25 provides both the excitement eventually get back home. The Rectory Mice and the factual accuracy to Jamie manages to destroy this James Harrison and the George Macbeth, recommend it. kind of servitude by the very cantankerous old sorcerer Sparrow, BB fact that he does lose hope and Thomas Kempe first appeared 0090328704, £1.25 The Huntsman upset 'their' plans. It's in 1973 and won the Carnegie Douglas Hill, Piccolo, uncompromising, it's demanding Medal for Penelope Lively. I 'But why do they want to kill 033026956 9, £1.25 and never less than challenging have used it extensively with each other? Isn't that very — but what a dreary cover! pupils and always found it wasteful?' Thus said From the author of the Last DB popular and useful, I think due Tamburlaine Mouse to his Legionary Quartet comes this to its lively theme of ghosts, father as they observed the first volume of a new series Kept in the Dark sorcerers and exorcism, but preparations for war at the which looks to have all the Nina Bawden, Puffin, also because it is a very rectory where British soldiers excitement and power of the 0 1403.15500, £1.25 perceptive study of the are billeted in 1914. Parallel best of his earlier work. Finn frustration of coping alone with to the human story, George Ferral is The Huntsman set in Three children whose parents problems which no-one else, MacBeth tells of a family of a distant future on earth. He are actors, one 'resting' and especially adults, seem to mice fighting the battle for was found as a youngster living the other on the verge of a recognise or rate. survival in the attic. in the wild, brought up by nervous breakdown, are sent to Tamburlaine finds violence adoptive parents, who are live in a rambling, rapidly exciting and those who die themselves kidnapped by alien decaying house owned by their heroic. He is to die himself Slavers. In this first book, unfamiliar grandparents. when the mice are smoked out Finn sets off in search of his Sinister family skeletons lurk of the attic. The Rectory Mice 'parents', a journey that is to all around influencing most is a metaphoric talc taking an prove incredibly dangerous strongly the relationships that ironic look at human behaviour and hazardous as he is opposed develop between grandparents, through the eyes and lives of by the horrendous beastmen, grandchildren and a hitherto the mice. Young readers may who obstruct his progress to unknown cousin, David, whose be misled into thinking it is an the lair of the Slavers. By the personality seems moulded by easy read. It is however end of this first book, the loneliness, the desire to belong linguistically quite a challenge pursuit has succeeded in freeing and the need to dominate. and accessible really to the Finn's adopted father leaving Somehow a good idea seems eleven plus group. With the appetite neatly whetted for to fail here and the story- sensitive discussion it should a further episode in pursuit of falters and fades to a rushed read aloud well to a top primary the mother. BB and compromised ending. The class. CL. atmosphere of menace and 'all A Stranger Came is not as it should be' is The Sylvia Game Ashore splendidly realised at the onset Vivien Alcock, Fontana and takes the reader into the Mollie Hunter, Fontana book at a lively pace, but then Lions, 000 672138 9, Lions, 0 00 672260 1, one is left feeling that it was A bottle is broken as builders £1.25 £1.25 all something about nothing prepare the attic bedroom of There are some splendid Mollie Hunter has woven a anyway — a great pity. Ask the kids what they think. DB I doubt if many children would realise that or many adults — they're so Authorgraph No.25conditioned to thinking that eleven year olds couldn't feel like that. Taken one way it's a very depressing book — it's certainly not light. But I'm not trying to make any points. I'm observing day-to- day situations. An adult would speculate — that Erica's probably not going to realise her dream and become a mechanic or that, 'Elsie's' business will fail. I don't think a child would pick up the implications . . .' The novels in which she 'works from life' are all about children and the narrative is shaped by the child's perception of the world. They also impose their own demands on the writer: Jan Mark's first novel Thunder at the very end that he realises what 'You owe it to the audience to provide he's let himself in for. So in a short a story. Children are not experienced in and Lightnings was published story, you've got to know the moment the way that adults are. They haven't in 1976, winning both the towards which you're working . . . the got the equipment so you have to give Penguin/Guardian competition end is in the beginning.' them something more concrete to work and the Carnegie Medal. In Moving on to discuss her first two on. There has to be something there the intervening eight years her novels and the latest Handles, Jan other than hints, clues, allusions which stature amongst English writers used a different analogy — that of the you can expect a more experienced for children has grown with artist 'working from life'. Handles is a reader to pick up (as in Aquarius). 'look at a relationship', a developing I like writing about children. I don't each new publication. Her relationship — that between the eleven want always to be writing about latest novel Handles finds her year old, bike-mad Erica and 'Elsie' children . . .' in most 'English' vein and Wainwright, the ex-teacher who runs a So what about the novels, the three returning to the Norfolk village failing motor-cycle repair business: 'heavies', which are not 'about setting of her first book. A 'It's very episodic and, like Thunder children'? — 'In them, I'm setting up measure of her stature is her and Lightnings, it's got no plot. It's a situations and inviting the reader to love-story — Erica is in love with explore the situation along with the nomination this year as the 'Elsie'. It's the beginning of a sexual writer. They're for a sophisticated British entry for the attraction which she doesn't understand. reader and they're deliberately written international Hans Andersen to discourage an unsophisticated reader. award. For the past eighteen months she has been attached to Oxford Polytechnic's Education Department, on an Arts Council Writer's Fellowship. Few writers are as coherent as Jan Mark when talking about their intentions as a writer or more trenchant in their views about children as writers. She makes clear distinctions about her work as a short story writer — a form she clearly enjoys returning to (Nothing to Be Afraid of, Hairs in the Palm of the Hand, Feet); what she calls her 'observational' novels (Thunder and Lightnings, Under the Autumn Garden, Handles); and the 'heavies', her 'speculative' novels (The Ennead, Divide and Rule, Aquarius). These distinctions depend for her much more upon the different demands of the short story and the novel rather than on the audience she's writing for — children or adults: 'Novels are linear but short stories aren't. The best analogy is the movie. A film is made up of thousands of still frames and if you isolate one frame, as with a paragraph in a novel, you learn very litte. In a short stoiy you're stopping the movie at one frame, isolating a particular moment, the seminal moment at which development begins to happen. It may be the moment when someone is jolted out of inertia and it's your job as a writer to justify the moment. In A Little Misunderstanding (Feet), I deliberately chose that title because the boy entirely misconceived the situation and it's only BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 13

Critics picked up that the opening of Aquarius was "convoluted". It's meant to be. I'm not working from life, I'm inventing an environment. So they're more abstract. Through the situations I'm speculating about manipulation — emotional, religious, political. Isaac, Harris and Viner are all different developments of the same basic pattern — the survivor. Harris (Divide and Rule), who is a liberal, SDP, Guardian reader in an extreme and bigoted society, is the least successful and probably the most sympathetic of the three. Aquarius is the only time I've played a consciously, literary trick. Readers excuse Viner's behaviour because they duty of a teacher is to convince the know his stepdaughter. They're still at think he's the hero. In fact, he's totally pupils of the immense value of what the stage of being fearfully polite to self-interested, too intelligent to be the they know.' each other and he coaxes her to come with him up North in the lorry to see hero. He's a manipulator and completely This emphasis on the personal ruthless. But we accept certain kinds of one of the mills that's got her name on knowledge of the writer emerged again it. That's the basis of the story . . .' behaviour because we're conditioned to when Jan talked about how she accept them.' researched her books. None of her At some point in the future we can also It was clearly Aquarius which she felt readers can have failed to notice the expect a picture book illustrated by least happy about appearing under a expertise she shows — the knowledge Anthony Maitland. The starting point 'children's' imprint: of bikes, for example, which she this time is not personal experience but displays through Erica in Handles. an incident from Gorky's My 'They are very literary and I don't like Authenticity and integrity are closely Childhood — a story his grandmother being explicit. I like to make the reader related in her writing. tells of thousands of little furry, kitten- work hard . . .' like devils being released one time 'The research for Handles was more a There was a strong sense, too, in her when the oven door blew open. It's a matter of checking with living people story that Jan obviously relishes: remarks of a desire to go on to do new ... I do myself like to know how things: things work. It is essential you know 'It's quite unlike anything I've done 'They (the "heavies") could get very and you've got to let it show. It ... I wasn't trying to make a new much more self-indulgent. I didn't think weakens the reader's confidence in the departure for picture books based on so at the time but I think I'm coming writer if you generalise and gloss over. Russian classics. It's purely personal dangerously close to covering the same You need to demand to be believed. pleasure and a sort of perverted ground by doing three books so similar Your knowledge gives you an authority enjoyment of knowing it comes from in treatment.' which transmits itself to the reader.' such an unlikely source. I know four year olds won't give a damn where it The experience of working at Oxford In talking about the novel she's working came from but it amuses me to think Polytechnic has contributed a great on at the moment, Jan gave an I've got a picture book out of Gorky. deal to that sense of new directions: interesting insight into how the elements And it's also the only animal story I've she'd described work out in practice. ever written. All the others have been 'The input is going to take years to The raw materials are there in personal work through and it's had a tremendous about people. It's really about keeping experience and her scrupulous a pet, featuring a responsible adult who effect on what I want to write. I'd had observation of the world around her five years of almost uninterrupted says "Put that back where you found and these elements are transformed by it!" In this case, it's a devil that's writing in an empty room, in an empty her interest in 'looking at a relationship' house, eight hours a day. If you're supposed to be going back into the at the point when it's beginning to oven . . .' writing as a profession, you atrophy. develop. The world dwindles to you and a Whatever we may expect from Jan typewriter — there's no input. Suddenly 'It's based partly on a trip I made with Mark in the future we can be sure that I was with students, colleagues — my brother who's a long distance lorry she will go on resisting 'covering the involved in an institution and its driver . . . then I went to Rochdale to same ground' to the despair, no doubt, arguments and politics. It's been an visit a school and I had to travel of those same critics who wanted her to unrivalled opportunity to study people through Oldham from Manchester and go on rewriting Thunder and ... so there's something else to process I saw the cotton-mills. They've got Lightnings. It's her own 'personal now.' names on, proper names, about 190 of pleasure' she'll be pursuing in her them all with names. I linked this with Those at Oxford who may feel uneasy writing. Otherwise, as far as she's the idea of the long distance lorry concerned 'the excitement would have at that remark will be reassured to hear driver ... a man who's still getting to that, whatever else she may be planning gone out.' to do, it isn't going to be a 'History Man' on Polytechnic life! Whatever she The Books may have gained from the experience (Titles published in hardback by Kestrel and of working with student teachers, there in paperback by Puffin unless otherwise stated.) can be little doubt about what they will Handles have gained from her. She has Aquarius 07226 5857 5, £5.50 hb encouraged them to write though she 0 7226 5793 5, £5.95 hb Long Distance Poet hasn't set up 'creative writing The Dead Letter Box CUP. 0 521 25500 7, £2.50 hb; workshops' — 'that's anathema'. Hamish Hamilton. 0 241 10804 7. 0 521 27510 5, £1.25 pb Rather she's asked her students to write £2.75 hb;(0 1403,1619 3, pb) that they might better understand the Nothing to Be Afraid of Divide and Rule 07226 5677 7, £4.95 hb; demands teachers so thoughtlessly 07226 5620 3, £5.50 hb impose when they ask children to write 0 1403.1392 3, £1.10 pb The Ennead Thunder and Lightnings fiction. It was here that the connection 0 7226 5477 4. £5.50 hb: became clear between her own Heinemann Educational (New Windmill 0 1403.13540. £1.50 pb series), 0435 12238 X,£1.70; intentions as a writer and her work with Feet and Other Stories 0 7226 5195 3, £6.95 hb; children and students. 0 7226 5839 7, £4.95 hb 0 14 03.1063 0, £1.10 pb Her students, she remarked: 'have no Hairs in the Palm of the Hand Under the Autumn Garden confidence in their personal lives. Yet 0 7226 5728 5, £4.95 hb; 0 7226 5347 6, £4.95 hb; each one of them is uniquely qualified 0 14 03.1441 5, 95p pb 0 1403.1248 X, 90ppb to write about themselves . . . the first 14 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 HOW TO Suggesting that the whole school suspends the usual activities for a day (or week) and throws itself into a hectic round of book-based activities may sound a little daunting. But it has been and is being done with great success in schools, large and small, primary and secondary, all over the country. All you need is a good idea, a bit of imagination and some careful planning. A Book Day can be simple or as elaborate as you want to make it. It can cost as much or as little as you can afford. Still not sure you could do it? Here are some ideas to get you going. We've gathered them from 'experienced organisers of Book Days who know they work. Book Day Basics IT WORKS LIKE THIS— FOUR BOOK DAY OUTLINES Most Book Days (or weeks) are a blend of the same activities: exhibitions, Creepy Crawly Day Dungeons and Dragons Day talks, demonstrations, films, games, Visiting Experts Dragonflies competitions, making things, drama, To talk, demonstrate (with films/slides/live Kite-making and flying (weather permitting). dressing-up, quizzes, puppets, author specimens!) about spiders, snakes or any Dragon Hoard visits, stories, workshops, bookselling. other form of creepy crawly. Try the local Make your own treasure — models, puppets, Displays, decorations all help to create university, polytechnic, college or Natural jewellery, mobiles from a Dragon Hoard of atmosphere. History Society. junk. Work by the children as preparation for Mini-Safaris Fantasy Games The Day and as follow-up increases the Groups of children go out collecting/ Contact local modelling and Dungeons and identifying insects etc. with teacher or local value and impact of the day Dragons societies for demonstrations and expert. Have lots of reference books on exhibitions. Search out computer software. enormously. When you discover how hand. Always involve the local Library or much a Book Day can contribute to Schools Library Service in your Book Day if Competitions what you are trying to achieve in the you can. Friend or Foe? curriculum it justifies all the hard work Who ought to be put in a Dungeon? Crafty Creepy Crawlies/Bee Crafty If you needed rescuing from a dragon who and the disruption of the normal routine. (Get the idea?) Activities that encourage reading, would you choose? Make snakes, spiders etc. out of junk. Craft Write 100 words for each answer. writing, talking and listening, that books on hand for ideas. Dragon Diner develop a better understanding of what Ant Act/Flea Fling books have to offer, that are interesting, Design a menu for a Hungry Dragon's Drama Workshop with the emphasis on Favourite Meal. exciting and fun, that act as a stimulus creepy movements. Caterpillar into butterfly? to further reading and enquiry must be The ant hill? Dungeon Key worth doing. How many words of 3 or more letters can Ugly Bug Ball/Butterfly Ball you make from the word Dungeon? Time spent discussing ideas, researching Dress up/paint pictures/design or make possibilities, plotting and planning is costumes. Merlin's Spell A Find-the-Hidden-Word grid with a fantasy never wasted. It's not too early to start Hunt the Creepy Crawly theme. ...- NOW for a Book Day in the next A competition: a sheet of silhouettes of a school year. variety of creepy crawly insects and animals for identification. Use of reference books The first thing to do is DECIDE ON encouraged. Tie-breaker — invent a name A THEME. When you have got your for a Book Day Creepy Crawly. theme, preferably one that can mix fact Creepy Crawly Capers and fiction, go back to the beginning of Games of Beetle. Snakes and Ladders, Book Day Basics and see how you Creepy Crawly Consequences with book can adapt those activities to fit your titles or pictures. A Great Reading theme. Rumbustification A nice general theme for fitting any book activity into. Cops and Robbers Day Write a Rumbustimenu — Supersleuths in the form of a poem with bags of Book Detectives match pictures of book alliteration. characters spread around the school with Launch a new party food for their authors and titles. A good lead-up Rumbustiproducts Ltd. — activity to arouse interest in the days before insights into advertising. the event. Invent a Rumbustiparty Game — A Fair Cop board games, ball games all with full rules Visits, talks, demonstrations, films from your and details for playing. local police force. Rumbustienterprises — A Nice Set of Dabs visits from local craft workers who Making pictures from fingerprints. demonstrate their skills — pottery, book Doing Time binding, lace-making. . . Making models, collages, freizes on the Things to Do — on a Rumbustifun Sheet theme of the day, or a well-liked story or How many words can you find in stories in general. Rumbustification. A Likely Story Cut out and colour a book mark. Story-telling, reading aloud, or tantalising Picture quizzes. tastes of exciting adventures. Design a Rumbustibadge. Mixed-up book titles. Shadowing the Suspect Puppet workshop on shadow puppets. Invent a puppet play. Jailhouse Flicks A book-based film show featuring Tomi Ungerer's The Three Robbers in the Weston Woods version. For catalogue and details of hire phone Henley-on-Thames (0491) 577033 and reverse the charges. BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 15

John Mason's NEW YORK DIARY

Oldest art form to go with the series. The series was largely funded by a grant from Kellogg's — public Whatever the Theme . . . Each year in Knoxville, Tennessee, the (non-commercial) television in America National Association for the Preservation being dependent on corporate and foundation The trick as you can see is finding and Perpetuation of Storytelling (NAPPS) sponsorship (as opposed to network television ways to turn the ordinary into the draws together 1,000 people for its annual which is advertiser-financed). Now we've storytelling festival. In Toronto, 2,000 just heard the good news that Kellogg's has fabulous by adapting activities to fit a gather annually for the Toronto Festival of theme. agreed to finance a further five programmes. Storytelling, sponsored by the Storytellers News has also just arrived of Weston Your theme will give you a focus for School of Toronto which also runs courses Woods's own television series to begin soon the all important BOOK LIST. and workshops throughout the year. — a long-awaited development; sounds 'Storytelling, one of the oldest, if not the exciting.) Display it in the classroom. Print it on oldest art form, is undergoing a tremendous give-away book marks. revival today,' says Rafe Martin, owner of Maverick And for DECORATION — of at least the Oxcart Bookshop in Rochester, New part of the school, especially if a Book York, whose monthly storytelling sessions in Shock-waves reverberated through the his bookshop have become so popular — children's publishing community of New Fair is going to be part of your Book and profitable in terms of spin-off sales — Day and you invite parents in the York when it was learned that George that he has expanded the project into schools Woods, long-time children's review editor of evening. Not everyone will want to go and libraries in the area. Americans, satiated The New York Times Book Review, had as far as Wellsway School in Keynsham with TV and movies, are rediscovering the suddenly been removed from his job, and where they turned the gym into Captain ancient, simple satisfaction of listening to with no reason given. Though precise details Pugwash's ship, The Black Pig, for stories in the company of other humans. remain a mystery, it appears that new their Christmas Book Fair, complete Weekly sessions in Toronto, called the management did not like his somewhat with sails, portholes and bridge from '1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling', have maverick style, and reassigned him to a less been going on for over four years and attract visible post. The question that now worries which John Ryan addressed the people from far and wide — even Europe audience, watched by life-size cutouts publishers is whether The New York Times and Australia. Anyone can come, and may decide to decrease, or even eliminate of Pugwash characters. But even a little anyone (of whatever age) can tell a story. altogether, its coverage of children's books, ingenuity and effort can transform a There is even a new breed of storyteller — which would be a serious loss of a major •/.^school hall or library. the professional — who like the medieval national — even international — organ that bard travels the country telling stories for a /•A BOOK QUIZ can be an exciting is read by both professionals and the general fee. But most storytellers are still amateurs public. •'.addition. Teams or individuals compete — booksellers, teachers, librarians and . «in answering questions on particular others — who do it as part of their job and '•.'• books. If author visits are part of your because they love it, and because it turns Streamlining plans choose one of your author's people on to books. A tip from Rafe Martin: Children's books recently lost ground in books for the quiz. don't try to memorize a story word for word, another instance of streamlining, involving but 'retell it in your own words ... in this the American Book Awards. Last year I BOOK DAY NEWS. Appoint a team way, the story is recreated by you and grows wrote in these columns about the children's of children, working with a member of and changes with each performance. This books award ceremony with its celebrity staff or visiting expert to produce a fludity is part of the authentic life of presenter and TV coverage. Now the Newspaper, Radio or TV programme traditional oral storytelling.' Association of American Publishers has about The Day. This can be as simple decided that the awards programme as it or as elaborate as time and resources Ebullient then was, with 27 different categories of winners, was too costly and complex to allow. Le Var Burton, the actor who became administer, and did little to sell books THE BOOK SAFARI is a good focus famous as the young Kunte Kinte in Roots, because the impact was diluted by having so is the ebullient host of a new series of 15 many winners. Impressed by the success of for a Book Day on any theme. David half-hour TV programmes about children's Neville, an actor and writer, has a very Britain's Booker Prize, they sent a team to books, on public television stations. The England to investigate, and have now lively one-man show which takes series, called Reading Rainbow, is in a decided that this year there will be just three children on a colourful trail through the bright and chatty magazine format, with winners — for fiction, nonfiction, and best history of printed books from caveman, each segment centred around one main book new writer — with each receiving $10,000 through Caxton to the first ever Puffin. and three or four other related books — 67 (instead of $1,000 as previously). Clearly Devised specially for 8-12 year olds it children's books in all. Some scenes were this makes a lot of sense for most publishers can be adapted by arrangement for filmed in libraries and bookshops, others out and for booksellers and the public, but of doors, and all involve children 'getting particular audiences. It lasts about 45 children's books are unlikely to share any of into' books. A children's magazine called the limelight. • minutes. • Reading Rainbow Gazette is also available Write for details to David Neville, 89 Kennington Park Road, London, SE11 4JJ.

Particular thanks for ideas included here to Tameside Libraries, George Spencer School, Nottingham, Wellsway School, Keynsham. 16 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 The Hans Christian Andersen AWARDS

In 1953 Erich Kastner, Astrid Lindgren Our warm-hearted jury thought Lapland had and P. L. Travers joined with the late been neglected in children's literature and Jella Lepman, founder of the the book should therefore be considered very International Youth Library in Munich, seriously (it was rather a good book in fact). Luckily the absent juror, Kaija Salonem, had to launch the International Board on sent notes and it appeared that, though an Books for Young People (IBBY) 'to excellent piece of literature, the book had promote international understanding nothing to do with Lapland! through children's books'. So what is 'fair'? Should we stick to In 1954 IBBY initiated the Hans excellence as the first criterion? (I think that Christian Andersen Award, presented in fairness, ultimately, to all children we every two years to the best children's should.) Or should we to some extent at writer selected by an international jury. least cause the award to move around as a sort of congratulation for progress or to show An award for an illustrator was added our sympathy for effort (not the same soon after. thing!)? Should we broaden the scope of the Patricia Crampton served as a member awards? of that jury in 1976 and 1978 and this HOMAGE TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. And what can we do about the language year is its President. Here she writes Vn engravins from I>,i,,ch for January 10, 1857 at the time problem? This year, well in advance of our about some of the problems of making meeting, I have written to jurors suggesting an international award. that, for the languages they do not know, Helpful though this is when only one or two they find two experts: one of their own In 1976 I truly believed that making a jurors have not seen the books, it cannot nationality, one with the same nationality as children's book award was one of those compensate for non-receipt by the whole the nominated writer, let's say Japanese, idyllic exercises to which international (i.e. jury, nor for the mature consideration possible both of whom speak both languages. The political) bias did not apply. That naive idea over several months. This year I received one sharing their own language can help to was soon shattered. I was shocked too into a my last batch in January, an achievement in produce a comparative criticism of the new awareness of the pigeon-holing we are itself and the first time to my knowledge that books, the other can provide useful all guilty of and the relatively limited all jurors have received all the books. information about the contribution made by the writer in question to Japanese children's outlook we all had on the literature of other In 1978 the jury met in Tehran, shortly nations. That year the British section of literature. This is not easy to achieve. Why before the revolution. Another kind of should busy people give up their time IBBY had nominated William Mayne and problem faced us when three jurors were Edward Ardizzone for the award. Mayne reading ten children's books for free? But at prevented from arriving, leaving us with only least it is worth aiming at. was dismissed by the other jurors as being seven votes out of ten and without the 'so typically English' that his understatements representatives of three languages. The A response to my request to jurors to begin remained underground; Ardizzone was absence of even one juror on an international with discussion of criteria in advance of the 'always the same' and very unexciting. jury is important because our range is in any meeting has come from Maurice Sax by of Openmouthed, I found myself presented with case not wide enough to cover all the Australia who writes: 'With Ana Maria a pair of earrings by one juror; later others cultures and languages involved. We have Machado, I believe that a writer's award told me they too had received appropriate been particularly conscious of the lack of a should value 'the literary quality of the text'; gifts from the same source. My eyes had juror from the Far East, not only for their but then I have listened to earnest'debates as been opened, and but for my husband's solid sake — none of us even knows Japanese — to what constitutes literary merit. I believe presence, I think my spirits would have sunk but for ours; we need to learn about the that literature explores, with integrity, some beyond recall. The winners, however, were Asian view of our children's books. area of human experience ... in James both excellent: Cecil B0dker and Tatiana Joyce's words, the work should have 'unity, Mavrina (USSR). But it was quite obvious The Andersen jury, in my experience, is harmony and radiance' . . .' that to the Western part of the world both serious and warm-hearted. Both virtues 'folkloric' art had ceased to appeal — the can become a liability. I remember the long Other phrases from other jurors in the past kind of cultural gap which makes discussion of the work of a rather mediocre remain with me. Of Paula Fox. 'a child can international jury work difficult. Austrian writer who in one book tackled the grow with every book'; of Alan Garner, 'for Irish troubles as they affect England. these three pearls alone (the Stone Book One of the biggest p-oblems in serving on sequence) he would deserve the prize'. (A the international jury is Getting the Books. Simply because this is a serious subject our language problem overcome there — the We receive an average of 10 books by each jury spent ages deciding how heavily the juror was Iranian.) and 'the books must open nominee and there are usually about 32 mediocrity and innacuracy of the book a window for the child'. nominations — 320 books. The jury meets weighed against the desirability of in April, so we hope to start receiving the commending the subject matter. Some even Looking back, with all the problems, the books in the previous September — little thought that incorrect information was better results we arrived at seem valid. Just enough time one would think. Inevitably the than none! In 1978 a book about Lapland by sometimes it is difficult to understand how ideal is not achieved. 1978 provides a a French writer came in for much discussion. we did it. • classic illustration. The Russian juror did not receive the works of Alan Garner and Charles Keeping, all despatched in good IBBY time, until long after the meeting had taken In October last year IBBY celebrated its 30th year of existence. There are now National place. The work of the internationally popular Janusz Stanny reached scarcely any Sections in 49 countries and Individual Members in a further 8 countries and territories. jurors and was reluctantly dropped from the As well as being a constant focus for international opinion and information on children and list. The Spanish nominees decided on air books, IBBY organises an international conference every two years. The papers and freight as their method of despatch; jurors proceedings of the 1 8th Congress, held in Cambridge in 1 982, Story in a Child's Changing found themselves with invitations from Customs to come and pay for the release of World, are available from Colin Ray, Tan-y-Capel, Bont Dolgadfan, Llanbrynmair, Powys the books at the airport. When claimed the SY19 7BB, £5.25 post free. (Well worth having.) books turned out to be only those of the IBBY also carries out projects; notably at the moment research into books for handicapped author nominee, the illustrator's never arrived children and fundraising for the IBBY Third World Book Fund. anywhere. The host country for the judging does its Patricia Crampton, a distinguished translator of children's books and an active member of best to make the books of all competitors British IBBY, has written an Introduction to the History and Work of IBBY, available, post available from library and embassy stocks. free, from Robert Leeson, 18 McKenzie Road, Broxbourne, Herts EN10 7JH, 65p. BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 17 SOUND & VISION Robin of Sherwood is back Robin Hood lives at the centre of a network of record, legend and myth; so many stories surround him that it's hard to distinguish between fact and fiction any more. Poems, songs, plays and stories about goings-on in the greenwood abound; Hollywood got into the act 50 years ago with Errol Flynn playing the dashing English folk hero who now has an international reputation. Which makes it all the more surprising that we haven't seen Robin on our television screens for nearly a quarter of a century. Richard Carpenter, writer of such popular TV series as Catweazle, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Smuggler, and Dick Turpin has changed all that. His six part version of the Robin Hood story Robin of Sherwood (produced by HTV and Goldcrest) begins on Saturday, April 7th at 7.00pm (ITV). Tony Bradman went to talk to him about it. Richard Carpenter started his working life as an actor. It was the success of his first writing job — he had the idea for Catweazle — that led to a complete career change to television scriptwriting. But why Robin Hood? 'I just thought it was time to do it again. After 25 years our ideas of how to portray a hero like this on television have changed, but the last series, the one which starred Richard Greene, is still being shown around the world.' How different a Robin Hood are we going to see on our screens, then? 'I think it's slightly ridiculous to imagine Robin and his men as 35 or 40 year olds. I've made them 18 to 23, and it's at that age when people tend to be rebellious. Young people do extraordinarily rash things, and they do have a keener sense of justice. They tend to see things in black and Still from Robin of Sherwood (Michael Praed), an HTV/Goldcrest co-production. white and act accordingly, which often may not be a bad thing. Seeing things in grey, vague terms can be a cop-out. 'Anyway, in the series Robin is 20 and Marion is 17. It's a very vital Gisburne are joined by evil, devil-worshipping Baron de Belleme, skilled young cast, and they do all their own swordfights and swinging in the black arts. Robin's link with magic is made through a character through trees.' whose influence permeates England and its folklore but who has been There is a fair amount of violence in the series. 'Will Scarlet, for largely forgotten. 'Hcrne the Hunter god of the forest was an old English example, is a very tough character. In the first episode he kills 17 people. folk god, related to the Green Man and its associated legends. The Cerne The fight on the log between Little John and Robin is no laughing matter, Abbas giant is really Herne, and his name survives in many place names either; it's a fight to the death, and Robin realises that Little John is in the like Herne Bay and Herne Hill. He's a very powerful part of the grip of a magical spell. That's what the series is like — lots of fights and Englishness of the programmes. In a way he's a fertility God, and he's action but very realistic. But we stress that Robin Hood kills very related in my mind to the eternal spring like quality of the Robin Hood reluctantly and only when he has to.' stories. They always seem to be happening in May, and they're young people in the spring of their lives. Marion can even be seen as a May Little John in the grip of a magical spell? That's another dimension to the Queen in some ways. legend that Richard Carpenter has added — or, he suggests, perhaps restored. 'Robin in fact becomes Herne's adopted son, and Herne is the source of most of the magic in the programmes. The other main theme draws on the 'The early medieval period, when Robin was active was a very story of the silver arrow, the silver arrow which is a potent symbol of superstitious time. Other English hero legends — King Arthur, Hereward resistance to the norman invader.' the Wake — include magic and sorcery; it seemed only right that there should be some in Robin's story too. Besides, I'm very keen on sword Sorcery, magic, politics, sex(?), violence, action-packed adventure. and sorcery which, I think, gets us away from things like science fiction What more could you ask for family viewing on a Saturday night? and into a more romantic world.' Robin of Sherwood, Richard Carpenter's own adaptation of the series The traditional villains the Sherriff of Nottingham and Sir Guy of for Puffin is reviewed in this issue of BfK. Meet Letty Boot In View Soon . . . Letty is the lively, sparky, Something for wheelchair-bound central Secondaries character in a new series from K TVS. The first of six 30 [; Turn them on to sophisticated minute episodes is scheduled *! thrillers via LWT's five week to start on March 28th at Raymond Chandler series. 4.25. Anna Home A New Cult? Multi-million dollar commissioned the series. Avril production; already 'a winner' Rowlands wrote it. She also Gerry Anderson's Terrahawks, in the States. (March). produced the Puffin version launched onto TV last autumn or classic detection via Letty(0 1403.1616 7, £1.25) by London Weekend, is (we are told) attracting the same Sherlock Holmes in a 13 part published to coincide with series from Granada. (April). transmission. kind of cult following as its legendary predecessor, or swashbuckling adventure The book, like Letty, is full of Thunderbirds. A second via Stevenson's The Master of fun. She tells her own story of series will be shown later this Ballantrae in a Columbia/ life at Meadowbank Children's year and a third is in the HTV co-production. 'Star- Home where her bright ideas making. studded cast'. Penguin have (herself as the guy in a 'Penny Meanwhile Sparrow publish the tie-in. (Late March). for the guy' expedition; starting the official tie-in Fraggle Rock fans can read up the Letty Boot detective novelisation by Jack Curtis Letty (Vicki O'Keefe) in an agency) lead to comic disasters about the adventures of Jim uncharacteristically dependent (009 934240 5, £1.25) in Henson's Muppet-style and exciting adventures. which young fans can relish at pose with house parents Aunt Among the laughs and the characters in three tie-in books, Margaret and Uncle James leisure the story of how Dr. each by a different author and thrills there's a reflection of 'Tiger' Ninestein and his elite (played by Alison Kay and the many sides of life in a illustrator. Hardbacks from Brian Croucher). fighting force defend the world Allison and Busby (£4.50), children's home and in a (again!) against ruthless wheelchair. paperback from Sphere aggressors. (£1.50).* 18 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984

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HANS ERIK CHRISTIAN 1805-1875

'My life has been a beautiful fairy tale, rich and happy.' With these words Andersen described his own life. He was born amidst the squalor which you can find today only in the poverty stricken villages of the Third World. His father was a journeyman shoemaker who patched the shoes of those so poor that they often could not pay him. His mother was a washerwoman who stood in the cold river washing the clothes of others. But in the fairy tale it is often the poorest of boys who marries the princess! In the fairy tale good fortune can be the lot of those born the meanest. At the end of The Ugly Duckling Andersen says: 'It does not matter that one has been born in the henyard as long as one has lain in a swan's egg.' Even as a small child Andersen believed that he was different, not like other children, and it was true — he had lain in a swan's egg.

Many people took an interest in the had already written plays, poetry and novels, possess a soul is, I believe, Andersen's own extraordinary child, but most thought that but it was his fairy tales which would attain discovery. He made them speak with human learning a trade was enough of an for Andersen the success he had dreamt of voices about their experiences as objects. advancement for the washerwoman's son. when he was a little barefoot urchin in The darning needle has only the memory of Little Hans Christian did not agree; in the Odense. a needle and the ambitions of such a humble fairy tale of his life there was no room for The first fairy tales were written 'for tool. He deals in a similar manner with his becoming a tailor or a carpenter. children in such a manner that adults could animals: a duck does not question that Fourteen years old, with little money in his listen to them as well'. (I wish that this fatness is beauty any more than a rat would pocket, he set out from his native town of sentence would be kept in mind by all question that a larder is paradise. They have Odense for Copenhagen. True to the heroes authors who write for children.) The later desires and are frustrated when they cannot of romance and the fairy tale, the goal he fairy tales and stories were composed 'for fulfil them, but their desires are reasonable sought was fame. Foolish perhaps, but had adults but written in such a manner that for their kind. Therefore, they are at times his ambition been less, he would never have children could listen to them as well'. tragic and sometimes funny, but they are never sweet and sentimentalized. succeeded. It was that very fever of ambition In an Andersen story Dame Fairy Tale burning within him which made people help herself appears and says: 'One ought to call Like many authors in the nineteenth century, him, even, as in a fairy tale, the King of everything by its right name, and if one Andersen was fascinated by science and Denmark. doesn't dare to do it in everyday life, then at technology. In 1850 he foresaw that travel But ambition was not enough, hard work and least one should do it in a fairy tale'. This by air would eventually surpass other forms — terribly important — the ability to may sound like nonsense to those who of transportation. In one little sketch he has overcome defeat and not to be destroyed by believe that such tales are merely idle the future citizens of America who are it was necessary too. The latter was the rubbish created to amuse children. True, the visiting the 'old countries' clutch in their hardest, for almost any criticism of his work fairy tale contains plenty of fantasy, witches, hands the best-seller of the day — Europe reduced Andersen to tears. As a child he giants and evil dwarfs but its backbone is Seen in Eight Days. had described the poet's lot in these words: reality, truth. The purpose of the fairy tale is But it still came as a surprise to me, when I 'First you suffer so terribly, and then you to express something which needs to be told translated a fairy tale called The become famous.' He was to achieve fame, in such a manner that it will be heard. Philosopher's Stone, to find that he had an but he was also to learn that suffering did During the German occupation of Denmark opinion about children and television as not stop because of this. an actor decided to read in public a story by well. In that tale 'the wisest man in the He was thirty years old when the first little Andersen called The Evil King. The Nazis world' lives in a castle where, in one of the pamphlet appeared containing five fairy had no doubt about whom the evil king was lower chambers, is a room with glass walls tales, among them The Tinderbox, Little supposed to portray, and the actor found which mirror the whole world and enable Claus and Big Claus and Thumbelina. He himself in jail. The little fairy tale had him to see what is happening everywhere. contained enough truth to offend the despot. 'The pictures on the walls were alive and moving; they showed everything that was In fairy tales animals are often given speech taking place, no matter where it was but that inanimate objects — such as happening; all one had to have were the time darning needles, collars or an iron — also and desire to look.' The wise man did not even bother to glance at the pictures, but he had children who did! They were very fond of spending their time in that room in the castle. Then their father would sigh and say to them: 'The ways of the world are bitter and filled with grief. What you see is not

Illustration by Michael Foreman from the cover of Hans Andersen: His Classic Fairy Tales. BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 19

HAUGAARD writes about a unique and original storyteller

reality, for you watch it from the safe world without those embarrassing shades in of childhood and that makes all the between. Good triumphs and evil is difference.' Indeed it does; reality and what summarily punished. This is refreshing in a appears on the TV screen are not the same, world as sophisticated as ours, and it is for you are merely seeing it, not participating pleasant to return through the gate to the in and experiencing what is being shown. land of one's childhood. But suddenly one Books written for children are relatively can sometimes wonder if the fairy tale is not new, only a couple of hundred years old and closer to the truth than all the books one has the fairy tale is much older than that. It is ploughed through since one was deemed a probably the most ancient form of literature, grown-up. Are evil and good relative, or are but just because it was a little late in being they absolute as in a fairy tale? Those who written down this might be hard to prove. perished in the concentration camps of Nazi But does the fairy tale have anything to say Germany and Siberia would probably have to the modern child? After all, the world has tended to agree with the fairy tale. changed; grandmother who used to tell such 'Once upon a time' is no time, just as east of tales in no longer sitting in the chimney the sun and west of the moon, or the end of corner. the world, is no place. In reality, however, The literature which amuses the child of it means 'at all times, in all places'. It is a today is derived from the fairy tale. Science declaration announcing that what you are fiction deals, if not with witches and giants, going to hear is the truth — both in time and with archetypes; it is a member of the family space. And everyone, be he king or beggar, though not quite a respectable one. Are needs to hear the truth once in a while at Anderson's own invention: collars, Professor Tolkien's books not fairy tales? I least, and that is why I most fervently hope darning needles, pins — all with souls. believe that the fairy tale fills a need in a that the fairy tale will always be with us. • Illustrated here by Michael Foreman. child's life, and only if that need ceases to be will the fairy tale vanish. We grown-ups often forget what it was like to be a child. If Erik Haugaard, born in Copenhagen, now lives in Ireland. A passionate you recall your childhood, you will become advocate of Andersen he writes, and lectures on the subject frequently on aware how much its world resembled the both sides of the Atlantic. As well as translating The Complete Fairy fairy tale's. Good fairies could appear Tales and Stories of Hans Andersen, (Gollancz, 0 575 01776 7, suddenly and save you, just as ogres could £9.95) regarded as a definitive edition, he has written four books for pop up too. Sometimes persons whom you children. loved and knew well — like your own Hans Andersen: His Classic Fairy Tales (Gollancz, 0 575 02188, mother — could be the good fairy and a £6.95) is a selection of eighteen tales from the collection, illustrated by witch almost at the same time. The Michael Foreman. wonderful and the horrible were never far apart, and so much that happened was, like magic, past understanding. The child conceives of its world as surrounded by a wall containing a gate which leads to the much larger world of the adults. Through that gate he will have to pass, and the child both longs for and is frightened by this. In the land of grown-ups things may be acquired by a mere act of will, whereas a child can only wish for things. How fervently one could wish then! The gift of three wishes which the good fairy often bestowed on the hero of the fairy tale was meaningful when one was a child. If children like fairy tales because they resemble their own world and portray their situation, why do adults like them too? I think it is because the fairy tale deals in archetypes, it is a world of good and evil 20 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984

The Wild Swans and The Little Mermaid: the two newest picture book versions of Andersen stories.

Naomi Lewis, whose version of The Wild Swans is the inspiration for Angela Barrett's illustrations in the new Benn edition, is a greatly respected Andersen translator and commentator. Here she talks about this story and about Andersen's particular qualities.

When I was making my selection for the Puffin edition I didn't Andersen was a wonderful storyteller. I think The Snow Queen is his include The Wild Swans. I was limited to a dozen and I wanted to put greatest story; it's an extraordinary tale; you can find in it what I in the more important stories and one or two that I thought were not think is his instinct for the lost novels he never wrote. well enough known, like The Goblin and the Grocer. I left it out The Wild Swans is an early story and it contains a great deal that is in because at the time I simply thought of it as one that like several of many of the most famous stories. It's incipiently The Little Mermaid, his earlier stories - Big Claus and Little Claus, The Tinder Box - were The Snow Queen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier - and all the ones that based on tales he had heard from the women when they were spin- show landscape and seasons. ning or gathering crops. But when I looked again at this fascinating story I found it certainly had the Andersen touch. He makes the story The theme of the story, salvation through hardship and endurance, his own. The most interesting thing to me is the flight, when Elisa is was one of his great themes. He knew it himself; it was one of his carried through the clouds by her brothers, the enchanted swans. It's own. The central thread of the story, a princess who must remain one of the great passages in fairy tale literature. Andersen, of course, silent until she has completed the task of weaving shirts for her had never been in the sky, but in a later story, The Millenium, or A brothers from freshly gathered nettles in order to rescue then from Thousand Years Hence (the title varies according to the translation) enchantment as swans, is one of great anguish. But in the story there he describes what will happen in a thousand years. He said there will is an absolutely beautiful evocation of the seasons and of the land- be machines flying, people will book a hotel in Europe from scape. If you read through Andersen you discover the Danish land- America. The only bit he got wrong was that it would be in a scape - the marvellous woodlands in spring, and the sea, of course, thousand years; it happened in a good deal less than a hundred from which is everywhere around the islands. In The Wild Swans there's a when he wrote. He was always interested in modern inventions. I wonderful description of night in the woods with the glow worms and think he saw them as an extension of magic. The flight in The Wild the fireflies. Andersen didn't write poetic prose, but there's a tre- Swans is a marvellous anticipation of the thing you feel in an aero- mendous amount of poetry in his stories. plane above the clouds, watching the clouds change shape. It's like that other flight in The Snow Queen with Kay and the Snow Queen; they fly up in the sky with the wolves howling and frost crackling. BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 21 Cover artist LISBETH ZWERGER

Angela Barrett, the artist whose illustrations appear in The Wild Swans, claims she 'just fell into illustrating children's books'. She was a final year student at the Royal College of Art when Benn discovered her. The Wild Swans,'though not her first book to be published was the first book she did for Benn and she finished it in 1981. Published first was The King, the Cat and the Fiddle with a story by Christopher Holt. 'I need good writing to spark me off,' she says. 'And I'm quite obsessive about going back to the text and making it right. I spent six months on The Wild Swans? I agonized over composition and made far too many rough drawings. I deliberately didn't look at any other illustrators' versions of Andersen. I'm glad I didn't, it would have demoralised me. When I'd finished and I did see some Wild Swans I found we all seem to have Lisbeth Zwerger whose illustration from illustrated the same bits. Some of the effects, viewpoints I'd thought were mine and original, I Andersen's The Swineherd appears on our found others had discovered too. Like all artists, I'd do it differently if I were starting now. I cover, was born in Vienna in 1954. Since her think I'd do it better.' first book appeared, eight years ago, she has The Wild Swans, Benn, 0 510 00123 8, £4.95 (published April) won international acclaim: three times a winner of the Graphic Prize at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, a gold medal at the The Little Mermaid is a Canadian co-edition, published by Methuen. The story is retold by International Biennial of Illustration in Margaret Maloney with illustrations by Lazlo Gal. It is perhaps the best-known of all Andersen Bratislava, several Austrian State Book stories; the classic tale of the beautiful little mermaid who falls in love with a prince, becomes Awards, and twice included in the New human for his sake and, although he does not return her love, sacrifices herself for him. York Times 10 Best Illustrated Books Margaret Maloney is currently head of the Lillian Smith and Osborne collection of Early Chil- Awards. This year she is the Austrian dren's Books, a library of rare and out of print Canadian children's books, and is an acknow- nomination for the Hans Andersen Awards. ledged expert in children's literature. She lives in Toronto. As a child she clearly showed artistic talent; Lazlo Gal was born in Hungary but has lived in Canada since he was a child. He is one of the but at art school became disillusioned and best-known children's book illustrators in Canada and won the Canada Council's Children's had all but given up when a young Book Prize in 1981 for his illustrations of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. For The Little Englishman, also studying in Vienna, Mermaid he took as his inspiration the statue of Andersen's classic character which stands on showed her some volumes of Arthur the edge of the harbour in Copenhagen. • Rackham from the English Library. Brought The Little Mermaid, Methuen, 0 416 46540 4, £5.95 up on fairy tales she immediately responded to Rackham's vision. She started work again, this time in illustration. Soon after, by another coincidence, the owner of a large fashionable gallery in Vienna, putting on an - exhibition of her father's work, had some space left. Lisbeth's pictures filled it and sold immediately. The owner of Austria's . Neugebauer Press wrote to her. 'I think you'd better go and see him,' her mother insisted^ knowing her shy, modest daughter needed a push. From that visit came the first of ten illustrated fairy tales. Her books now appear in 17 languages and she works exclusively for Neugebauer Press (distri- buted in this country by A. and C. Black.) She produces one book a year, starting in the winter and finishing in the spring. At present she is working on another Andersen, The Emperor's Nightingale. After many rough drawings to find the eleven or so pictures for the book, the final paintings, done to size, are worked in a combination of water soluble inks (available only in Vienna) and water colours, with an outline in brown ink. She spends months on one picture and there are 'lots of failures', when the colours go wrong and the whole thing has to be abandoned. According to her husband, that same young Englishman, she hates being pressured but works best when a deadline is looming. Most in sympathy with the classic and traditional subjects she is not attracted by contemporary stories. Her most 'modern' work so far has been for O'Henry's turn-of-the-century story, The Gift of the Magi. Her publisher thought it would be 'good for her' but it wasn't something she would have chosen. With so many fairy tales available you might think Lisbeth Zwerger would be spoiled for choice. The trouble is she doesn't want to do stories about little girls who, if they are good, grow up to marry handsome princes. With that limitation, ' she's rapidly running out. • . 22 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 'ANDERSEN AND THE ENGLISH Brian Alderson surveys attempts to translate Andersen in words and pictures.

When Patrick Hardy asked me to undertake Stephen Corrin's often very alert fourteen the new edition of Andrew Lang's Colour tales in Ardizzone's Hans Andersen Fairy Books for Kestrel, one of the things (Deutsch, 0 233 96996 9, £5.95) and that we had to decide was what to do about Reginald Spink's reliable, workmanlike Andrew Lang's texts. For although these versions in the 'Children's Illustrated Classic' twelve books make up a great treasury of the series (Dent, 0 460 02739 5, £2.50). It world's folk tales they preserve them in a would be nice too to tell readers to go out form that is often stilted when compared to and buy the largish selections that were the fluency of the told story, and may often translated by R. P. Keigwin (four volumes sound cumbersome to the listener in the late published by Edmund Ward) and by Paul twentieth century. Leyssac (a delightful version published by Nowhere is this better exemplified than in Macmillan in 1937) but these labours of Lang's treatment of Hans Christian love are long out of print. The same is true Andersen, who enters the series in the fourth of L. W. Kingsland's translation for two volume, The Yellow Fairy Book. Here, and books put out by the Oxford University in its immediate successor, the Pink, Lang Press, but some of his work has been includes some sixteen tales from Andersen brought back in The Nightingale and Other — about whose nationality he seems Tales (Worlds Work, 0 437 23062 7, uncertain. For although at one point he £5.95), although here it is accompanied by refers to him as 'our Danish author', he also crude and unacceptably intrusive illustrations calls him 'Herr Andersen' and specifically by Mary Tozer. states that his translator, Alma Alleyne, has From 'Hans, the Mermaid's Son' in The Pink For it is another corollary of my criterion for worked from German versions of the stories. Fairy Book. judging editions by Andersen that the As a result, the texts of Andersen in the illustrator should not overpower Andersen's original Yellow and Pink fairy books do not own voice. This was something that he was measure up to the character (or sometimes nervous about himself, I suspect, since the even the structure) of their source stories. early editions of his tales were all Thus, as with many other stories in the unillustrated and since he later chose series, we decided to pitch Andrew Lang draughtsmen like Pedersen and Frolich whose (and Alma Alleyne) overboard and to work harmonised so well with his own style. introduce versions which we hoped would Today though, in the picture-book editions, have a more authentic flavour to them. there is hardly one where translation and Andersen is a particularly good example of pictures add up to a satisfying whole. Some this need for editorial tinkering because, interesting items have appeared in a longish unlike the anonymous tellers of the folk series of landscape format picture books put tales, he exerts a powerful and intensely out by Kaye & Ward, who do make an personal influence on his stories. His Danish effort to print complete stories in standard Eventyr may carry about them the hints of a translations, but the coloured illustrations traditional past, but they are impregnated are often very quirky (James's translation of The Fir Tree, 071820891 9, £3.50) with his individual character as a storyteller. Philip Gough's drawing for Thumbelina' Only rarely before the Eventyr began to in the Naomi Lewis Puffin. illustrated by Otto S. Svend is perhaps the appear in 1835 had anyone allowed the best example in print of this series at its voice of the storyteller to emerge with such paramount that I wrote for IBBY a booklet most reliable). Rarely though do you find assurance in a chidlren's book (look at the on what the poor man has suffered at the anything with the quality arid care and first sentences of the first story, The Tinder hands of his English admirers. In that all- affection that went into Nancy Ekholm Box), and never had that voice had the too-brief essay and survey I tried to show Burkert's The Nightingale, with its matching range of inflection that Andersen how his genius has had to struggle against translation by Eva Le Gallienne commanded. Conversation, irony, straight dull and thoughtless translators, and how his (Heinemann). But while so much dross — narrative, throwaway asides — the stories incomparable style has too often been from Le Cain to Ladybird — flourishes, that possess a battery of effects that are the obtruded upon by Le Cain-like gentlemen truly 'sensitive' work is out of print. property of a live narrator confronted by a with clever-paintbrushes. But even though I list in this booklet some ninety-three English In sum therefore, I find that I am live audience. If an editor or a translator recommending only about half-a-dozen of does not recognise this fundamental quality editions of Andersen in one form or another there are precious few that I would care to the sixty-odd books listed under 'Andersen' in Andersen's stories then he is selling both in the latest Books in Print, with perhaps his author and his readers short. recommend to the discriminating readers of Books for Keeps. half-a-dozen optional extras among the In working on the Lang 'Fairy Books' picture books. Is this, I wonder, seen by therefore (where I decided to do the Without doubt the first choice (also, readers of Books for Keeps as a severe and translation myself), and in considering what interestingly, just about the cheapest) is the unpractical thing to do, or is it (what I to say about versions of Andersen that I collection of twelve tales translated by believe it to be) a rational attempt to do Naomi Lewis and illustrated by Philip justice to a great writer? meet up with as a reviewer, my reaction is Gough: Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales governed by one factor only: truth to the Hesitantly, I also wonder whether a similar original. Truth, that is, as far as can be (Puffin, 0 14 03.0333 2, 95p). This little book is the outcome of many years' reflection degree of selectivity might not be applied to managed in the impossible business of less august children's books. The fat years, converting fluent, near-colloquial Danish on the nature of Andersen's genius, and it is put into English by a writer with a wonderful before Thatcher's Razor, encouraged a good Andersen into an English equivalent. ear for the equivalencies of English prose — deal of careless publishing and even more I realise that this is not a very fashionable so that the rest of us, who are working too careless spending. A bit more rigour in attitude (and never has been). I notice, for quickly or are too close to the edge of our deciding which books really are for keeps instance, in the 1983 Signal Review of knowledge sound jerky or unnatural by might well be welcome. Children's Books that that eminent editor, comparison. (This, I think, is one of the Judy Taylor, can happily praise the pictures things that worries me about Erik Haugaard's and dismiss the typography of a couple of version used in the Classic Fairy Tales The Yellow Fairy Book, Andersen picture books, without commenting illustrated by Michael Foreman. When it ed Brian Alderson, ill. Eric Blegvad Kestrel, at all on what has happened to the original first came out I welcomed Haugaard's huge, 0 7226 5435 9, £7.50 raw material; and I notice that the annotator complete Andersen (too) enthusiastically — The Pink Fairy Book, (Elaine Moss?) of the Good Book Guide to partly because he made accessible so many ed Brian Alderson, ill. Colin McNaughton, Children's Books (1983) can endorse as stories that had never been properly Kestrel, 0 7226 5703 X, £7.50 'sensitive' Naomi Lewis's truncated text of translated before. On maturer reflection The Snow Queen without questioning if however, and after more experience, I find Brian Alderson's booklet Hans Christian massive abridgments of this masterly tale are blemishes in the book — especially the Andersen and his Eventyr in England, legitimate. (I draw a veil over the rubbish in tendency to expand phrases — which show IBBY (British Section) 0 903838 03 6, is that same annotation about Errol Le Cain's up uneasily alongside such versions as those available from Chris Kloet, Tameside deeply insensitive illustrations.) by Naomi Lewis.) Libraries and Arts. Council Offices, Wellington Road, Ashton-under-Lyne, Nevertheless, it was in the hopes of justifying Of the other small collections that have Lanes OL6 6DL. Price, £4.00 post free. a critical stance which makes Andersen many commendable features I would pick BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 23

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Lloyds Bank 24 BOOKS FOR KEEPS No. 25 MARCH 1984 THENEW PUFFIN CLUB

Things have been moving'fast at Harmondsworth since Eunice McMullen became the new Puffin Club Manager last autumn. The New Puffin Club was launched on February 1 st and its form and style may give a nasty jolt to the members of that exclusive band of Founder Puffmeers. The Puffin Club of the eighties it is hoped will have something to offer to all sorts and conditions of children who are (or might be persuaded to be) interested in reading. The target for recruitment is schools — rather than middle-class homes. And the package includes direct selling of books (some at a discount) via the Puffins by Post book club.

Eunice gives us the details Travelling Booksellers Bookshop has covered all of First of all Puffin Post has changed to a new large format and will be Cambridgeshire and large parts more colourful and open in its design. There will be a regular feature on Surely some of the most of surrounding counties, an author or illustrator; Nina Bawden, Jan Pienkowski and Mike Rosen determined and dedicated visiting nearly 400 primary are the first three. All these authors are giving up a week of their time to booksellers around must be schools, fairs, playgroups, and work intensively in schools and libraries in a particular area. These those running mobile conferences at the rate of up to Puffin Author Tours will be a regular feature to link with each new issue bookshops. Their concern to ten a week, spreading the of Puffin Post. get books and children message that children's books together and their love of what are exciting. Welcomed The biggest change is that we are now a registered book club. There will they are doing pushes them on everywhere by teachers, be a regular four page, full colour insert going out to all members with in a job where no-one is going parents and best of all, The Egg or Puffin Post. The insert, Puffins by Post, offers some books to make a fast fortune. Recently children, it has not so far at reduced prices as well as new books. Postage is free if four or more disaster struck Althea's managed to cover its costs. books are ordered. Travelling Bookshop which But it has sold a lot of books As an alternative to the normal subscription of £2.50, Starter Packs has been making books that might not have found containing £6 worth of books can be bought for £5 and membership is available in the remoter parts homes otherwise, as well as then free. (This is also available to existing members wishing to renew.) of Cambridgeshire for two (we sincerely hope) giving an years. occasional boost to local We also have special deals for schools and libraries. They can all take Tony Haszard, who, with bookshops whether school or out an annual subscription to either magazine for just £2. Copies can be high street based. ordered in bulk for 25p each (cover price 30p) provided there is a Althea, set up and runs the minimum order of ten: postage, of course, free. There is also a school bookshop, writes 'With the While salvage is sorted out the membership. Individuals can join through their teacher (£1.25 each). help of an unsuspected patch future remains unclear. For this they receive four issue of Puffin Post and a membership of black ice, our 25ft caravan Meanwhile the mobile badge; they share the same membership number and magazines are and gaily-painted Sherpa van, bookselling torch is in the posted in bulk. There must be a minimum school membership of ten. along with several thousand hands of among others Bob assorted titles and two staff, Cattell whose Greenwich If anyone has queries or wants information just contact me at the plunged into a deep ditch beside Bookbus (run in concert with Puffin Club, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middx. (01 759 the B1040 near St. Ives in local authorities) has shown 1984). Cambridgeshire. Thanks to the way, Ian and Maria Barclay safety belts, I and our assistant who continue to make The Annual Puffin Show Kate Brodrick (on the second- headway against daunting odds to-last day of her YTS in Mid-Wales with Bws Llyfrau This year it's The Fantastic World of Puffin Kingdom and there will placement) were unhurt, but and Christine Willison with be plenty of Dungeons and Dragons--type activity at Chelsea Town Hall, the vehicles and stock are her new Book Bug in Suffolk.' 23 April - 5 May. Official opening by Dahl and Blake on Easter Monday likely to be a write-off. and lots of other things to do and see and people to meet. Let's hear from any others of In its career to date the you out there. Send s.a.e. to Harmondsworth for detailed time-table.

aimed at teachers and was born in Manchester. In NEW FROM SIGNAL National Tell a Story extremely low cost' are 1977 she married and moved Signal Review 2 Week promised. Details from to Berlin where she now lives A selection of the best in The Federation of Children's Manchester Literacy with her husband and two children's publishing from Book Groups is planning its Conference, School of children. 1983, edited by Nancy annual orgy of storytelling and Education, 799 Wilmslow Free Gifts from Hippo Chambers. (0 903355 14 0, reading aloud which lasts from Road, Didsbury, £4.50 post free) May 5th- 12th. Manchester M20 8RR. Hippo books are working hard The theme this year is Stories to make everyone more aware An exhibition based on the The Kathleen Fidler of their existence. At the end Review will be at the NBL from Around the World. The Award of March they will have from May 26 - 31, and then at week will be launched in available their very first the London Book Fair, the London at the Commonwealth The second winner of this Institute on May 5th. There catalogue and along with this Barbican Centre, April 10 - award set up in memory of the they are offering/ree 4" 13. will be storytelling (of course), Scottish children's author is drama, craft, competitions, Elizabeth Lutzeier for No Hippo stickers, Postman Pat Poetry for Children bookmarks and a Hippo poster. fancy dress and lots of fun Shelter. To get your very own A selection of in-print around stories and books. All The award is for a first novel promotional package apply to hardback and paperback poetry welcome. for 8-12 year olds. Last year's Hippo Books, 10 Earlham St., books, made by Jill Bennett Details from Sue Cole, winner, Adrift, by Allan London WC2 (01 240 5753). (for up to 8's) and Aidan Aptonfields, Hounslow Green, Baillie was well reviewed and Chambers (9-14's). Over 120 Barnston, Near Dunmow, Blackie, who will be publishing Join the Club: annotated titles. Essex CM6 3PP. No Shelter in September, getting books to (0 903355 13 2, £1.95 post (0371 82004). think they have found another free) children Why not join in with an winner. Both lists available from The activity of your own? No Shelter tells the story of a May 24th. An IBBY Seminar Thimble Press, Lockwood, boy and his baby sister on bookclubs and bookselling Station Road, South struggling to survive in for children. For librarians, Woodchester, Stroud, Glos. Something to think Germany during and teachers, publishers, authors, GL5 5EQ or The NBL, about? immediately after the Second parents. At Birmingham Book House, 45 East Hill, World War. The judges say, Triangle Cinema (formerly the Making Literacy Purposeful Arts Lab) 10.00-4.30. London SW18 2QZ. is the first Manchester Literacy 'Although the story does not shy away from portraying the Details from Sheila Ray, NBL Touring Exhibitions are Conference. April 26 and 27 Tan-y-Capel, Bont also available based on both at Didsbury School of full horror of war, it does end on an optimistic note. It Dolgadafan, Llanbrynmair, lists. For details apply to Education, Manchester Powys SY19 7BB.» Andy Patterson at the NBL Polytechnic. 'Fourteen should provide much food for (01 870 9055). speakers, a practical orientation thought.' Elizabeth Lutzeier