0 Doors to Writing, Keys to the Imagination - Lucy Coats

As an author, I'm often asked to come up with creative writing exercises for children. Sometimes I use Greek myths and we imagine how this tale or that might translate to the modern world. But most often, I use a familiar thing, an ordinary setting, and get the kids to imagine something extraordinary happening there. Unlocking the power of the imagination is a kind of magic - and it only needs the right key. One thing I often use is a plain old simple door. We don't really think of doors in our everyday lives, except as functional things to go in and out of. We open them. We close them. Sometimes we might use them as an indicator of emotion and slam them. But a door is just a door, isn't it?

Well, it is until you start asking questions...what is behind the door? Where might it lead? Who might lurk behind it? Another world? Another time? A faun with an umbrella? A robin? A garden full of wonders? A different century? Doors have a wonderful literary heritage in children's books. My grandmother bequeathed me her very own childhood copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, complete with onionskin covered, hand-coloured plates, and slightly foxed sepia endpapers with elegant, curving swirls drawn upon them. A valuable second edition? I didn't care about that, only for the words inside, which blossomed into pictures inside my head.

As an only child, with much older parents, I could relate to the lonely Mary Lennox, and her grumpy moods, and her 'might I have a bit of earth?'. The scene where that bit of ivy swings back, and the robin shows her the door to the garden is, for me, one of the great moments of heart thrilling literary suspense. And what I love almost as much is that what is behind the door is not a disappointment, but a wonderful adventure composed not of another world (though it might almost be so), but of brown earth and the magic of growing things. I too, after I had read about Mary Lennox, asked for my bit of earth, in which I grew lettuces and chinese lanterns and nasturtiums.

The wardrobe door leading to Narnia is possibly the most famous door of all--and which of us can say that they have not looked longingly at the back of a cupboard (though probably not one hung with furs) and wished for it to dissolve into nothingness with snow and a lamp post beyond? Most recently, Sally Gardner has been asking questions about doors, in her latest book The Door That Led To Where, which I've just read and enjoyed. Her door is an escape from the twenty-first century into the nineteenth, and people go through it for all sorts of reasons, but mostly to escape some problem in their current lives. That's another question you can ask kids to consider for a door exercise. What would you want to escape from - and what might you find on the other side of your door? Would it be simple safety, a room nobody else could find? Or a whole new universe of exciting adventures, where you could play the hero? Teri Terry's excellent Mind Games (also just published) has a door of another kind - a trapdoor to a secret place where only certain people can go, a place where you can change the virtual worlds in people's heads, and create new worlds of your own.

When is a door not just a door? When it's a key to unlocking the imagination. Why not open your own door, and see what's on the other side? 

Lucy's UKYA novel, CLEO, will be published on 7th May by Orchard Books. You can find out more about Lucy's writing on her website and also chat to her on Twitter. 

Detail: Doors to Writing, Keys to the Imagination - Lucy Coats

0 Books About Flying - Heather Dyer

I appeared at the Biggest Book Show on Earth this week. The authors were each asked to speak for 15 minutes on ‘Why I Can’t Live Without Books’.

Me wearing the wings. Photo a selfie courtesy of Shoo Rayner, fellow writer and illustrator, on the left!

Books allow us to step into other people’s shoes, and see how it feels to live other people’s lives. Books help us to empathise. Books allow us to meet larger-than-life characters, go to unfamiliar places, and witness extraordinary events. And they allow us to experience things that would never be possible in our real lives – things like flying!

As a child, all my favourite books had some flying in them. One of the first was Enid Blyton’s wonderful The Wishing Chair. How thrilling it was to read about the wooden chair that grew wings whenever Mollie and Peter least expected it – and carried them off to fantastical places.

And who could forget that flight across Narnia on the back of the winged horse, Fledge, in The Magician’s Nephew by C S Lewis?

Then there was the flying carpet in Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet. When the carpet grew threadbare and there was risk of falling through it, flying became even more exciting – and I cried when this book was finished.

But the most fantastical flying object must be the peach in Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach. James harnesses hundreds of seagulls to lift the peach out of the water and fly it across the Atlantic.

Flying has found its way into most of my own books too – be it by magic carpet, wings – or more unusual vehicles, like Elinor’s bedroom in The Flying Bedroom. 

Clearly, I have not lost my longing to leave the ground. Who has? Flying is really about freedom - about being light, about being able to leave your worries on the ground and about gaining a whole new perspective on the world – rather like books themselves.  

Detail: Books About Flying - Heather Dyer

0 The Best Place to Hide: Some Favourite Children's Books about Dens and Hiding Out - Emma Barnes

Last week I wrote about how camping out - in both reality and fiction - inspired my new book Wild Thing Goes Camping. Equally important, I realised, was the idea of dens and secret hiding places.

There’s something really powerful for a child about a den or a secret place. There’s all the fun of finding or building one. There’s also the thrill of having a place that nobody know about: a place totally under your control, where nobody messes with your stuff, which is totally private from the grown-ups.

I’d already used the idea once before in Sam and the Griswalds – where a tree-house in Sam’s garden provides an important refuge and meeting-place.

In Wild Thing Goes Camping, five-year-old Wild Thing disappears into the back garden with some of the clean laundry.  When big sister Kate, Gran and Dad go looking for her, they are rather taken aback when a head pops out of the ground at their feet.

"No need to shout," she said. 
It was a bit of a shock seeing my sister come out of nowhere like that.  "What are you doing down there?" I demanded.  "And... where is the rest of you?"
"In my new den, of course," said Wild Thing.  And she disappeared again, under the sheet.
Dad gave a roar of annoyance.  Then he knelt down and grabbed a corner of the sheet - and pulled.
Wild Thing gave a howl.  "Stop!" she bellowed. "That's my roof!"


It turns out Wild Thing has made a potato trench in the back garden into a den for herself and her worms. She makes a sheet into the roof and purloins Gran’s new handbag as a “worm house”.

Of course, Dad forbids her from building more den.  But like children before and since, Wild Thing is not about to give up her pursuit of a place of her own!

Here are some of my own favourite books with secret dens. They cover the entire age range: a secret space, after all, may be just as important to a teenager as it is to a small child making a den behind the sofa.

I’ve had to search hard, though, to think of recent examples. Is this because there are fewer forgotten and hidden places in today's intensely developed world?  Or because modern children have less freedom to explore outdoors?  Or perhaps because today’s children take refuge online – not in dens?

1) Sally’s Secret- by Shirley Hughes Classic picture book writer-illustator Shirley Hughes produced this wonderful story about a small girl making herself a house at the bottom of the garden. The joy is in the details – the doll’s tea set, the leaf plates, the tiny cakes. At the end she decides to share it, and invites the next door child to tea.

2) Tilly’s House – by Faith Jacques  A servant doll that runs away from a dolls’ house and creates her own home in a wooden crate in an abandoned green-house. Although about a doll, it taps into a child’s own desire to make a little place of their very own. The special pleasure of this story, again, lies in the very detailed illustrations, and in seeing how discarded and unwanted every day human objects (sponges, bottle tops, wrapping paper, an old glasses case) can be transformed into the furnishings for a doll. 

3) The Hollow Tree House - by Enid Blyton Enid Blyton may not have been a great stylist. But her enormous popularity was not for nothing, and one of her strengths was her ability to hook-in to a child’s fantasies. It’s not surprising, then, that many of her books feature secret hide-outs. The Hollow Tree House is about two children who, with the help of a friend, run away from their abusive relatives and make their home in a huge, hollow tree in the woods.

4) The Magician’s Nephew - by C.S.Lewis  Sometimes a secret place may be the way into another world.  Polly has made a "smuggler's cave" in the attic of her terraced house. It is, of course, when she shows the attic to her friend Diggory that they travel too far along the rafters, stumble into Uncle Andrew’s study, and end up as part of an experiment which sends them out of this world, and eventually into Narnia…

5)  The Dare Game - by Jacqueline Wilson Jacqueline Wilson is a contemporary author who seems to have a direct line to a child's fantasies.  In this book, her most famous character, Tracy Beaker, bunks off from school and discovers an empty house.  It becomes a place where she can escape from her troubles, but also form new friendships.

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6) The Secret Hen House Theatre - by Helen Peters  This is a recent book, whose old-fashioned setting on a Sussex farm has not stopped it making a big splash.  Helen lives with her three siblings and widowed dad, whose long working day leaves little time for his children.  Then one day she stumbles upon a dillapidated old hen house.  For Helen, it represents not just the chance of creating her own space, but a way of fulfilling her dreams of being an actress...

7) Jenning’s Little Hut- by Anthony Buckeridge  Jennings and his boarding-school friends build their own shelters down by the pond.  These vary from Bromwich Major’s subterranean “elephant trap” with resident goldfish to Jennings and Darbishire’s own Ye Old Worlde Hutte with its periscope, duckboards, and front door mat made of bottle tops!

8) Peter’s Room- by Antonia Forest  In this neglected classic, Peter Marlow turns the loft above the coal shed into a hide-out, complete with stuffed hawk and antique pistols. This adult-free space then becomes the venue for a teenage fantasy game that gets dangerously out-of-hand.

9) The Hunger Games - by Suzanne Collins   Katniss and Gale have a secret shelter where they meet while poaching in the woods. Later, during the Games themselves, Katniss and Peetah take refuge in a cave by the river. For victims of an oppressive, authoritarian regime, the possibility of a space of their own is every bit as important as it is to younger children trying to dodge their parents.

Any suggestions for number 10? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emma's series for 8+ Wild Thing about the naughtiest little sister ever (and her bottom-biting ways) is published by Scholastic. 
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is published by Strident.  It is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps

Emma's Website
Emma’s Facebook Fanpage
Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite

Detail: The Best Place to Hide: Some Favourite Children's Books about Dens and Hiding Out - Emma Barnes

0 Why do we write about talking animals?

I'm feeling a littleemotional, to be frank. I've spent the past eight years writing three books about a group of talking animals (The Last Wild trilogy), whom I've grown very fond of. Last week I sent the final book off to the printers. I won't be making the animals in it, or any others for that matter, talk again for the foreseeable future.

  

And, pausing before I blunder off into a whole new imaginative realm, I've been reflecting. Why do we do it? Why do we take these dignified, self respecting other species we share the planet with, and imbue them with often wildly mismatched human characteristics, psychology and dialogue? Why are those characters so perennially popular with younger children? Equally, why are they such a literary turn off for some, and many older readers?

 There are many answers to those questions, and they've changed as continuously as human behaviour. One argument is that in making animals talk and walk like us,  we seek to play out the mysteries of our deeper and more unknowable feelings. For children, growing slowly cognizant of more complex and challenging human emotions on the adult horizon, animal characters in books can be like a literary version of play therapy, safe proxies through which to navigate those feelings. (Perhaps that equally repels older or adult readers who have no desire for proxies, hungry for the authenticity of real human interaction.)

But that’s the young reader. What’s the appeal to the adult writer, seeking to put words in the mouths of mice? For me, I keep coming back to the haunting story of another writer and his far better-known talking animals.

In 1906, he was nine years old, known to all as ‘Jack’, and living in East Belfast, enjoying a quintessential turn of the century middle-class childhood. 

The Lewis family, 1906

His father Richard was a successful solicitor, and his mother Flora was the daughter of an Anglican priest. His elder brother Warren was away at boarding school in England, but when he was home for the holidays, the boys enjoyed long walks and cycle rides in the leafy suburbs. The spacious house might sound boring for children  - with what Jack later described as its “long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude” - but he and Warren happily filled it with imaginary worlds and games of their own, inspired by their father’s substantial library.

But 1906 was the year everything changed for Jack. Quite suddenly, his beloved mother passed away at an early age, from cancer.  The world he knew and loved, the idyll of his early childhood - had been changed forever.  And Jack’s response was to lose himself in one of the fictional worlds he and Warren - or Warnie - had created together.  A world he called ‘Animal Land’ - full of delightful characters such as this natty frog.

 In 1907, he wrote to Warnie at his school in England, describing in detail the story of one of Animal Land’s many kingdoms.

My dear Warnie

 …I am thinking of writeing a History of Mouse-land and I have even gon so far as to make up some of it, this is what I have made up.

Mouse-land had a very long stone-age during which time no great things tooke place it lasted from 55 BC to1212 and then king Bublich I began to reign, he was not a good king but he fought against yellow land. Bub II his son fought indai about the lantern act, died 1377 king Bunny came next.

Your loving

brother Jacks

Animal Land, which soon evolved into a universe known as “Boxen”, was a complex imagined world created by the two brothers, which blended animal fantasy with mediaeval romances popular at the time and contemporary colonial politics.  Crucially, it was conceived as a complete world - with its own rules, boundaries and belief systems.  In one story, Jack wrote :

"The ancheint [sic] Mice believed that at sun-set the sun cut a hole in the earth for itself."

Much later in his life, Jack, in his better known identity as C. S. Lewis - wrote in his partial autobiography, Surprised By Joy:

“With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy, but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.”

To a pair of young children dealing with their grief, and shortly, further displacement as Jack was sent to join his brother away at school in England - the history, lives and laws of some imaginary mice or frogs offered the one thing their upturned lives suddenly lacked - security.

It's too simplistic for me to dismiss Narnia, as some do, as a mythical paradise completely driven by Christian allegory. Lewis himself always denied this, famously insisting
“I couldn’t write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion.”

Whether he protests too much or not, the promise of innocence, happiness and peace in a fictional land populated by talking animals would be one Lewis returned to again and again in his Narnia books. Perhaps not just to proselytise.  Perhaps also to journey back in the imagination to the secure childhood happiness he could never recover in reality. 

I didn’t grow up in Belfast in 1906, and nor did I suffer the tragedy ‘Jack’ did at a young age.  I like to think that I had a happy childhood. But I also believe that when you write children’s books, especially those with created worlds, you inevitably write out – directly or indirectly – layers of your own feelings as a child. When you finish those books, and leave that world, in some small way, you finish a part of your childhood too.

And perhaps that’s why I’m feeling emotional.

Piers Torday

@PiersTorday

www.pierstorday.co.uk

Detail: Why do we write about talking animals?