Young bookworms

Image: coolspotters.com

I have written here about encouraging reluctant readers, but a conversation on Twitter with @ActuallyMummy, @LesleyAnneWeir, @Playbythebook and @BroughtonLass made me think about the opposite problem: how do you find reading materials suitably challenging for a 7 year old reading well in advance of their chronological age?

The temptation can be to encourage children to read increasingly difficult books. However, books for older readers can be unsuitable for children in plot, content and ambiguity; young children expect resolution, goodies rewarded and baddies punished. Books for Young Adult readers rightly address the concerns of their readers: relationships, which may include sex, politics, racism and violence. These are clearly not appropriate for young readers.

Image: lemonysnicket.wikia.com

Equally, I frequently see comments on the Amazon forum and on newspaper websites from adults claiming that they just went straight from reading Enid Blyton to Dickens. In my opinion this is equally inappropriate. I was assessed at 9 as having a reading age of 14 (after refusing to learn to read until I was 7). Indeed I read Wuthering Heights at 10. It put me off reading classics for years. (I have often been puzzled by people pushing Wuthering Heights at young girls. Far from being a romantic hero, Heathcliff is a murderer, domestic abuser and the desecrater of Cathy's grave! I can only assume they're remembering the bowdlerised Laurence Olivier film). Even some classic children's books such as Little Women and What Katy Did may not be appropriate: we tend to forget that they were the Young Adult books of their time.

So, my fiction suggestions.

1. Historical fiction. Rosemary Sutcliff's books for younger readers, such as The Armourer's House, and Cynthia Harnett's The Wool Pack, are wonderful. There is a lovely blogpost on The Wool Pack from DoveGreyReader here. Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse was my favourite as a child, and recommended to those who like their history with some fantasy; equally Joan Aiken's Wolves of Willoughby Chase series. Good readers have their comprehension skills challenged as they have to think carefully about the historical background.

2. Fantasy fiction, carefully chosen, may be a good option. Eva Ibbotson's fantasy fiction for younger children and Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series are good options, as well as the first three Harry Potter novels. (Some parents may consider that the later ones are not appropriate for their children; some will not be unduly upset, but others may find them frightening, as well as very long!) I particularly enjoyed Lucinda Hare's Dragonsdome Chronicles novels last year, which combine the close relationship between children and animals that I enjoyed in pony books as a child.

3 Animal stories, such as those by Michael Morpurgo, Dick King-Smith and Lauren St John are very enjoyable. Some parents may consider some of Michael Morpurgo's books too challenging for younger readers, but the synopses on the website should give a good indication for your children.

4. Classic children's books. The Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, Noel Streatfeild's novels (and children who enjoy them may like Lyn Gardner's Olivia books) and Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons may be enjoyed by younger readers. The narrative drive of the stories may over-ride the historical setting and unfamiliar language.

I hope that these suggestions are helpful; thank you to the tweeters named above for their suggestions which inspired this post!

Trotting ponies, swooping dragons

Like many other pre-teen girls, I was obsessed with pony books, and the idea of riding. I grew up near riding stables, and later my more enterprising younger sisters got free lessons in return for mucking out and other chores, but by that time I had become more interested in other things. However, I read a great many pony books between the ages of 9 and 11, and I particularly liked Follyfoot and other Monica Dickens pony books about the farm and ponies. I recently re-read it, and while I found some of the snobbery a little hard to take (the nouveau riche plumbers' wife with gnomes in her front garden and secretaries from London who don't know how to look after ponies are disapproved of; the poor-but-natural rider Toby is semi-adopted as One Of Us) the unabashed physicality and resourcefulness of the girl characters is celebrated; something they have in common with boarding school stories. I mentioned on Twitter that I was reading Follyfoot, and had people tweeting me the theme tune to the TV series, which I remember only vaguely- we couldn't get ITV on our telly until a new mast was built in the mid 70s- but I am determined to find a copy of it!

Image: bookdepository.co.uk

I was reminded of pony books by reading a couple of books about dragons: Lucinda Hare's Dragonsdome Chronicles, The Dragon Whisperer and Flight to Dragon Isle. The story of Quenelda, illegitimate daughter of Earl Rufus DeWinter of the Stealth Dragon Services and an unknown mother, it combines the best elements of pony stories (the close relationship between child and animal, the power that relationship confers and the feeling of freedom and speed that riding invokes) alongside magic and an epic battle between the Seven Seas Kingdom and the Goblin Hordes. It reminded me strongly of both JRR Tolkein's The Hobbit and Harry Potter, with the themes of a timid outsider (Root Oakley, Quenelda's squire and friend, is a gnome who is terrified of dragons) overcoming his fears and showing heroism, and a slightly arrogant protagonist learning patience and tolerance through a less able friend. There is a terrible betrayal from a character whose arrogance has led him to pursue personal power, corrupting him. The physical hard work of looking after animals and the commitment needed to do so properly is demonstrated through the contrast of Quenelda with her vain and selfish half brother, Darcy, who is nearly killed through his unwillingness to listen to the Dragonmaster. Although the setting is in the fantasy Seven Seas Kingdom, the use of Scottish phrases such as "haar" for a sea fog, and the descriptions of the the Sorcerer's Glen remind me strongly of Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe.

Image: Lawrence Warren from bbc.co.uk

At Haringey Children's Literature Festival I met author and storyteller Margaret Bateson-Hill, author of some gorgeous picture books and of Dragon Racer and Dragon Racer- Legacy of Fire.

Image: amazon.co.uk

Joanna Morris is an ordinary school girl from Brixton, South London, who is waiting for her brother opposite Lambeth Town Hall when she notices a small silver dragon crawling down the outside of the building. Excalibur has been bred by the Brixton Dragon Caves to race and compete against the rival Brighton Pavillion Dragon Caves, owned by the sinister Marcus King, who will stop at nothing- even genetic mutations- to win. Like Quenelda, Joanna has a powerful connection with the mischievous XL, and they must train hard and overcome adversity in pursuit of compete. It's a great, exciting read, but for me lacked the intrigue of The Dragon Whisperer; perhaps the modern day setting means that it inevitably misses the epic sweep?

I would recommend all these books for confident readers of 8+. I know that Zoe from Playing By The Book's 6 year old loved having The Dragon Whisperer read to her, to the extent that she is considering dressing up as Quenelda for Children's Book Week!

The Tao of Ged

Once there was a poor boy who was neglected by his family. Strange things started to happen around him, and he was taken in by a man with affinity with the natural world. His powers earned him a place at a school for wizards, a place of esoteric learning and strange rules, where he was teased and humiliated by a boy from a high born family. The boy was impetuous and hot tempered, and well aware of his poor home life, and as a result of using magic in an unauthorised way, called up a dreadful threat which only he could defeat.

 A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin was first published in the UK by Puffin books in 1971, as the rather psychadelic/ pre Raphaelite cover above suggests. This is the cover I remember as a child (I think this was my Mum's book; at any rate it didn't feature in my bedtime stories from my Dad. Maybe he thought it was too scary- but somehow had no compunction about reading the far more gory Hobbit!) I didn't read this as a child. I first read it a couple of years ago. It is a very different beast from the plot-driven fantasy of much popular modern children/ Young Adult fantasy such as Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl or the Lemony Snickett novels (and I don't mean this dismissively- these are all very enjoyable and often challenging reads). But Le Guin is writing in a different era, from a different stand point.

The novel was first published in 1968. This was an era of race riots, Black Power, Vietnam protests, USSR and China testing nuclear weapons, strikes and riots in Europe, hippies, "free love" and women's liberation. Ursula K Le Guin is a feminist, she is concerned with ecological issues and in Taoist philosophy, and these themes are often explored in her novels. Le Guin has stated that she feels that too often Science Fiction is about white men colonising space; she writes specifically from a feminist perspective in her later novels (see The Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu, the fantastically creepy sequels in the Earthsea novels). A huge innovation in her Earthsea novels is the diverse nature of her world; Ged and most other characters are described as having copper skin and black hair (although you wouldn't know it from the cover above or the recent television dramatisation.) Ged's friend Vetch is black. Le Guin drip-feeds this information about her characters throughout the first few chapters; a clever ruse given the year the novel was published in, and clearly sadly the producers of the television series didn't feel that staying true to Le Guin's vision would be popular either with viewers or with advertisers. See Le Guin's comments about this here.

I have stated that this novel is not plot driven, like much modern fantasy. Ged is on a quest, to defeat the evil that he releases due to his vanity and egotism. However, I believe that the novel’s key theme, the necessity for Ged to restore balance to Earthsea and thereby to learn moderation and self-control, are Taoist in origin. His growing maturity is demonstrated in his changing names: he is Duny as a child herding goats, then Sparrowhawk when he is with Ogion before going to school, but his true name is Ged, which must be guarded, for knowing a person’s true name gives the hearer power. (I know very little about American Indian beliefs, but Le Guin’s mother was an anthropologist who wrote a famous book about Ishi, a Yahi  man. I wonder if the idea of the power of names came from her mother’s research.) Ged must learn a dragon’s true name in order to gain power over it, and this section of the novel, where very little action occurs, but a great deal of character progression happens, can be related to the Taoist principle of inaction. Ged must learn to be in harmony with the universe.

A BBC audiodrama was recently repeated on BBC7. It is still available to listen again for a few days, and I strongly recommend it.

Here be dragons: Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman quotes GK Chesterton at the beginning of  Coraline: "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons are real, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten". In Gaiman's books that I have been thinking this week, there are no dragons, but there are wolves, witches, murderous barons, a sinister mother, a giant, school bullies and a group of hired assassins- but he tells us that they can all be beaten- and in the main part, through intelligence and skill, rather than through the protagonists' special powers.

I first encountered Neil Gaiman through my dad. He and I have always bonded through books and reading, and while we have some difference of opinion, he first got me interested in speculative fiction, firstly through Lewis and Tolkein, then through Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Terry Pratchett. My dad passed on a copy of Good Omens, which Gaiman wrote in collaboration with Pratchett- I think either in the final year of my degree or shortly afterwards- and I still think it is one of the funniest books I have ever read.

A student introduced me last year to The Wolves in the Wall. This I find a very interesting book. It is beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean, and I find the typography very interesting too- at some points the words almost seem part of the illustrations. It is the story of a little girl, Lucy, who hears noises in the walls of her house. She knows that they are caused by wolves, but her family insists that there are mice, rats or bats causing the noise. Lucy is proved right when the wolves burst through the walls and take over the house- but she is also the one that comes up with the plan to take the house back. My student was confused by this book, because it is a picture book, which she associated with younger children. I would think that some young children may find it a little alarming- but of course, small children are the ones who are convinced that there are wolves in the wall, or bears under the bed, or (in my case) a gorilla at the end of the bed under the covers. Lucy is brave and sensible, confronts her fears and chases them away.

Coraline probably brought Gaiman to the attention of many people as a writer for children through the film adaptation. Coraline is a fascinating novel. I feel it demonstrates Neil Gaiman's respect for both the fairy tale tradition and the traditions of children's fantasy fiction, in particular Alice in Wonderland. Coraline and her parents move to an old house divided into flats. Her parents are to busy to pay her much attention. The other flats in the house are occupied by a strange old man (who turns out to be Mr Bobo, the trainer of a mouse circus) and Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, retired actresses who breed Yorkshire Terriers and call her Caroline. When exploring her new home, Coraline finds a door that opens into a mirror image of her home. There she finds another mother, who seems to be a doll, who seems at first to be sweet and attentive to her, but in fact cannot look after Coraline properly because she is unable to see beyond her own needs. She wants Coraline to stay with her forever, and to be her little girl. Coraline encounters some ghost children, who tell her that when the Other Mother became bored of them she ate them and imprisoned their souls. Coraline realises that the Other Mother cannot resist games and puzzles, so challenges her. Through her intelligence, with the help of a bossy cat, she tricks the mother, and escapes back to her real house and her real parents, and at the same time releases the souls of the ghost children.

What I found rather creepy about the book is that on the surface, Coraline's parents may appear to neglect her: they are busy working and can't amuse her when she wants to be amused, and that leads initially to her becoming trapped by the Other Mother. However, Gaiman seems to be telling us that indulgent parents are equally dangerous, particularly those who are unable to see beyond their own desires when it comes to their children. Coraline is safe at the end of the story, having learnt how to face things that are frightening, like murderous mothers and the first day of school, and she tells us "when you're scared and you still do it anyway, that's brave". I've always been a sucker for brave girls in fiction, and these two are wonderful. I'll write another post about Gaiman's Graveyard Book and it's inspiration, the Jungle Books, in a couple of weeks- I'm feeling a Christmas delve into seasonal reading coming on!