Poor kids

Three "cultural" events recently have chimed with my research (take THAT, government funding bodies only interested in PhDs in Science and Technology!), which is in social class and social capital in children's fantasy fiction. The first one was at Stoke Newington Literary festival, where The Independent's Johann Hari and The Guardian's Suzanne Moore were on a panel discussing Chavs by Owen Jones. For non-British readers, Chav is a term that has come into use in the last 10 years to describe what might also be termed the proletariat. It is in my opinion, a highly objectionable term; used sneeringly to describe people who do not share middle class values, in a way that would, if directed to non-white people, be racist.

Jones' contention (and I haven't read the book) is that Britain has become so separated in social class that many people using this term are so totally divorced from working class people that (usually young) people have become demonised. Traditional working class jobs have gone, and people who would formerly have worked in ship building, car manufacturing or mining are now in retail or service industries, which do not pay the same wages and do not provide the same sense of identity, since these jobs are not easily identifiable as "working class". Hari stated that he frequently asks senior journalists what the average salary is; the editor of a national newspaper believed it to be £80 000 (Hari says it is £22 000). Yet many of our images of feckless, scrounging, criminal and stupid working class people come from these journalists, who are with some notable exceptions (Moore and Hari being two) privately educated Oxford or Cambridge graduates.

A few days before the literary festival, the Literacy Trust released research indicating that book ownership and its relationhip to success, attainment and social mobility. It was reported that three in ten children in the UK do not own their own books. Then yesterday I watched the BBC documentary Poor Kids. Watching these bright, articulate children struggling to attend school (poor housing leads to health problems; 85% of children living in poor housing suffer from asthma; school uniforms are too expensive for some parents) was heartbreaking. One small girl was trying to complete her homework standing up in a cold bedroom while her sister was shivering in bed. In contrast to some of my students' assertions that parents "don't care" about their children's education, her mum ran up the stairs to help her with her Maths.

I was thinking about class in children's literature. It is my assertion that not only has it largly disappeared as an overt theme in children's fantasy (for example, Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, written in the 1960s, is notable for it's treatment of class in high fantasy) but also that protagonists are increasingly middle class and priviledged children. An exception is the work of Eoin Colfer. His book Half Moon Investigations is the story of a 12 year old detective solving what begins as the theft of a lock of a pop star's hair, but develops to assault, arson and kidnapping. The theft is originally blamed on Red Starkey, bully and scion of the local "no good" family. However, as Fletcher joins up with the Starkeys to clear Red's name, he discovers that they don't deserve their reputation. By contrast, the local goody good middle class girl gang are much more sinister than their Barbie-fixated appearance would suggest. The portrayal of the Starkey family is particularly nuanced; they are clearly working class and not always on the right side of the law, but on the other hand, Fletcher sees how being constantly accused of everything that goes wrong in his town has affected the Starkeys.

If you wanted to do something about the appalling levels of child poverty and associated social exclusion and lack of educational attainment in the UK (we are ranked as 18th out of 22 industrialised countries for child poverty by Unicef, and children born poor here are far less likely to escape from poverty than most other countries) you may like to donate to Save the Children or The Literacy Trust. Or if you're one of those people who buy far more books than you can ever hope to read, or if you have a child who has grown out of a big pile of books, you may like to donate them. The wonderful Book Elf Leeds has links to a Primary school in Birmingham you can send books to- they will be given to the children to take home. Of course they should be in a decent condition and appropriate for 3-11 year olds. You may like to donate books to a local community centre or homeless organisation. My children's books are in constant use, but I have a pile to take to the Homeless mobile library run by Quaker Homeless Action. I will find out if they need children's books as well.

Edit: I read this yesterday saying that charity is not enough to deal with this issue. I agree. You may like to contact your MP via They Work For You and urge them to think again about closing libraries and benefits caps which affect the poorest and most vulnerable in society the most.

World Book Day

Last night I was lucky enough to go to the very swanky offices of Slaughter and May in the City of London, to hear Anthony Horowitz give the Sir Simon Hornby Memorial Lecture for the National Literacy Trust on World Book "Eve". In a typically iconoclastic address, Horowitz posited that we are not having the "right debate" about library closures. While making it clear that he does not support the closure of "a single library anywhere", he pointed out that not only are adult borrowing figures at an all-time low, but the most borrowed adult author is James Patterson, the unfeasibly prolific author who has just signed a contract to produce 17 novels in 3 years; a feat he achieves by working largely with co-authors who write the first draft of his novels. Horowitz suggests that the Public Lending Right is not aimed at such writers; so perhaps there should be a mechanism for successful writers to pay it into the public purse to support literacy.

Horowitz was equally bracing on World Book Night (Saturday 5th March), which he felt could be in danger of being simply "nice, bookish people giving books to nice, bookish people". I was excited about the idea of World Book Night- registering to give away 48 of your favourite book- until I saw the titles. Now, these are some wonderful books, don't get me wrong- but my particular interest is in children/ young adult titles, and only Pullman's Northern Lights and two "crossover" novels: Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Yann Martell's The Life Of Pi are listed. I've read all of these, and loved them, but they are already best sellers and well known. I wanted to use the occasion to metaphorically grab someone by the collar and in the style of the Ancient Mariner, rant on about an amazing title that I had read recently and loved. Then I read this, by Nicola Morgan.

Coincidentally, 6th March, the day after World Book Night, is the third birthday of the totally wonderful Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green. It is my local bookshop. Wood Green is in Haringey, North London. It is a borough where 22% of children- close to 1 in 4- grow up in severe poverty (i.e. where the weekly income is less than £134 for a single-parent family with one child or £240 for a two-parent family). Wood Green High Road has a number of closing down (or closed down) shops, pound shops, charity shops and chain stores: not the environment where you might expect to find an independent bookshop.  It is however very close to the more well-heeled parts of North London, such as Muswell Hill or Highgate, both of which have excellent independent bookshops that I had visited regularly. Crouch End (a far wealthier area) lost Prospero's Books last year.

Waterstone's Wood Green closed down with 9 days notice in 2007 (replaced, predictably, by a chainstore selling cheap clothes), and Tim and Simon, former Waterstone's employees, opened their shop in 2008. It's a great, friendly place to buy books, and is a truly community bookshop- it holds quizzes, book groups, baby and toddler storytimes, a board games afternoon on Sundays... I could go on. I have seen Carl Barat, former Libertine, playing live there; I met Phill Jupitus there, as the Tottenham Choir sang carols in the shop on one of the snowiest Saturdays of the year.

And then came this blogpost. It seemed that we'd become a little complacent and had got used to the shop being there. So I decided that on World Book Day I would give a book as Nicola Morgan suggested, since I'll be at a birthday party on World Book Night (although my present will be books, bought at the Big Green Bookshop- family and friends, please get used to this!) I bought the breathtaking Unhooking The Moon from the shop:

I registered it with Bookcrossing.com, then I wrote a note, explaining that it was a gift. I slipped a 10% discount leaflet for the bookshop inside, hoping that it will encourage someone not familiar with the shop to visit. I went to Caffe Latino, an independent coffee shop in Wood Green (where one of Big Green Bookshop's book groups meet), and had a latte. I was planning to leave the book on the table:

But instead I decided to leave it in the newspaper rack:

I hope that one of the many customers in the caffe will pick it up and take it home for their children, or maybe read it themselves and enjoy it. It's a marvellous read. And they'll visit the bookshop and support it.

Anthony Horowitz believes that independent bookshops are vital for children's literacy, as are school libraries, with properly qualified librarians. Please consider donating a few pounds to Literacy Trust, who do vital work in promoting literacy in schools but have lost 100% of its government funding (£1 million). Please use your local independent bookshop, or if buying from Amazon, click on the new from tab and buy from an independent bookshop. Because if we don't use them, they won't survive. Buy fewer books, but from independent shops, and use your library more.

Zoe from Playing By The Book is organising a book donation scheme for Christchurch families who have lost everything in the New Zealand earthquake. This seems to me to be a great way to help- I'm sure you can remember as a child the devastation of losing a favourite toy or book. It must be so much worse to lose them all. Please have a look, and contact Zoe if you'd like to help.