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!

Under the sea

Image: jwwaterhouse.com

Mermaids are fascinating. They seem to symbolise both the seductive beauty and danger of the sea, the borderline nature (or liminality) of the coast- of the earth but moulded by water; and also our human condition: do we belong to the natural, animal world, or are we separate? Stories of love between humans and merpeople can be the ultimate in doomed love; how can people who live in different elements ever marry? It's a compelling story, that has been told and retold since Homer's Odyssey.

Image: Waterstones.com

I have read two books recently that retell (in different ways) Matthew Arnold's The Forsaken Merman. Firstly, Liz Kessler's The Tail of Emily Windsnap. Emily lives on a boat in a seaside town with her mother. Despite them living so close to the sea, her mother has never allowed Emily to learn to swim. During a swimming lesson, Emily finds out why: as soon as she hits the water, her legs fuse to a tail, and she becomes a mermaid! Believing that her mother is terrified of water, she doesn't tell her of her discovery; instead she puts her new tail to the test, swimming further and making a new friend. However, she discovers that merpeople are forbidden to have contact with humans, and that her mother is being betrayed dreadfully by someone who has a reason to keep it that way... A great, fun read.

Image: Waterstones.com

The EDGE: Rivets series is an exciting-looking range of books for readers who are not yet ready for the challenge of sustained reading that novels for readers 8+ can present. Katherine Langrish, a writer I really admire, has retold the story of the Forsaken Merman from the point of view of Mara, the daughter of the merman and Margaret, the human woman who has left her family and returned to land. Mara journeys to find her mother and bring her back. Told in simple yet beautiful language, it's a compelling read. Highly recommended.

I'd recommend both books for 8+,  Forsaken particularly for children who enjoy stories but find reading quite daunting. And the title of this post? The jaunty song from Disney's The Little Mermaid, of course!

Books to encourage reluctant readers

I've been asked several times recently by parents how to encourage children to read, and I thought I'd expand on this in something longer than a 140 character tweet or quick chat after lectures at University! I hope you find this helpful.

1. Continue to read to your children, even after they can read competently for themselves. Children's language comprehension skills often develop in advance of their ability to decipher words on the page; so they enjoy hearing adults or older siblings read books they can't yet read for themselves. From hearing stories read aloud they develop understanding of how books and stories work, and it can encourage them to persevere with reading.

2. Take your children to the library, and encourage them to choose anything that looks interesting. Allowing them to select fairly freely from the children's section will allow them to develop their taste and improve their ability to choose books that are likely to interest them. If they choose books that are a bit too difficult, you can read them with the child; if too easy this is fine- it will improve their confidence. Talk to the children's librarian if you can, and look out for story time, holiday reading clubs and other events which may encourage your child.

3. Allow your child to see you choosing books for yourself in the library, and read in front of your child. That is far more valuable on a day to day basis than seeing Premiership footballers read! This is particularly important for dads, as schools can be such feminised places. Allowing them to see reading as something that is enjoyable and a pleasure in itself rather than something stressful, can encourage them to read other than when they have to.

4. Series of books can be very comforting for child readers. I was a reluctant reader until I was about 7, but latched on to Enid Blyton's Secret Seven; I realised pretty quickly that they were pretty much all the same, but this was reassuring. Astrosaurs- space travelling dinosaurs- are great for 6-8 year olds, the glorious Mr Gum for 7-9-ish year olds (and 40-something University lecturers; I really can't read them on public transport due to loud cackles), and of course for older children there are a plethora of series. I particularly like Artemis Fowl, and Caroline Lawrence's Western Mysteries looks fantastic. I've written before about how Harry Potter got reluctant readers- particularly boys- reading in my classroom.

5. All reading is good reading. Comics and annuals- including those based on popular TV programmes and sport- were devoured in my classroom by children often reluctant to read books. The forthcoming Phoenix looks very exciting, and Bayard's comics that Zoe blogged about on Playing By The Book. There are some fantastic graphic novels for children too, like the Baker Street Irregulars by Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood, for 10-12 year olds. Since comics and graphic novels don't feel or look like graded readers from school, it removes one of the barriers for children reluctant to read.

6. Have a look at the Guardian's Children's Books site if you haven't already, with your children. There are podcasts and video clips of authors talking about their books and book reviews by children of children's books. There are competitions to win books as well! For older children, sites like Walker Books' Undercover Reads is great: book trailers and author information, which is also posted on YouTube.

7. Allow a space for reading. I'm the kind of person who could read in a whirlwind, but some children need a space with no distractions. Maybe an evening a week with no telly or computer, where the whole family reads?

8. Audiobooks can be a great support. Libraries again can be a great source. Some children enjoy listening to the audiobook alongside reading the book, while some may like listening to the story first then reading the book. Knowing the storyline allows children to make sense of the text, and if they enjoy the story, it will encourage them to persevere.

9. Collections of short, related stories can be more manageable than a novel. For younger children, Horrid Henry or Penny Dreadful are great, with lots of pictures to break up the text. For older children, Horowitz Horror and Geraldine McCaughrean's wonderful retelling of myths and legends are great reads.

10. Tap into their interests. Sport? Tom Palmer and Helena Pielichaty write great football and rugby stories for boys and girls. History? Well, the Horrible Histories and Philip Ardagh's fascinating historical list books. Sharks, dinosaurs, space, trucks, ballet, gardening, cookery... there are some amazing non fiction books out there. The Wonderwise Science-related picture books are great. Baking from a simple cookery books or following instructions to make something from a craft book can show children the purpose of reading for information.

Finally, apps and ebooks may or may not have an impact- but I have no experience of them, so I can't comment from experience. Nosy Crow's Cinderella app looks great, and I am quite excited about the possibilities of the Choose Your Own Adventure app- the original books were huge favourites with Y3 and 4 boys. In my experience this is the age that children may start to be reluctant to read independently, but spotting the furtive groups of boys huddling in the corners of playground swapping books was a delight in the 90s!

I hope that this is helpful! If you have any tips, please do post them.

Good and bad news

My, 2011 has seen some sad news already. Pete Postlethwaite, one of my favourite actors, Mick Karn, whose band Japan was incredibly important in opening my 13-year-old musical mind with their album Gentlemen Take Polaroids, and now Dick King-Smith, a prolific children's author. He will be best known as the author of The Sheep Pig, filmed of course as Babe, and The Queen's Nose which was a very successful BBC children's series, but I remember Dick King-Smith for two other books.

I taught for most of my career in inner-city, ethnically diverse schools. I had a delightful class of year 4 children (8 and 9) in Tottenham. They had an amazing sense of humour, they were creative, enthusiastic and great fun to teach. We were doing a Geography topic on contrasting locations, and we were looking at farming. We went on a trip to Capel Manor, where the children marvelled at the space, and were terrified of shire horses. We saw bluebells and a fox (not so amazing for the children...) They loved it.

I always made a point of reading a class novel to my classes, whether they were Reception class or Year 6, about to go to Secondary school. And this class was no different. To carry on with the theme of the topic, I read them Sophie's Tom

Sophie is a little girl who lives on a farm with her mum, dad and brothers. She longs to be a farmer. For her 5th birthday, she receives lots of presents, including a toy farm, but what she really wants is an animal of her own. She decides to adopt a stray cat, Tom, but her parents are against it. Sophie, being a determined young lady, has some plans to help her get her way... My very ethnically diverse class (in a school where 38 languages were spoken) who, as I have said were not at all familiar with farms and animals absolutely loved this book. They adopted  Sophie's favourite insult, mowldy, stupid and assive, and laughed uproariously at her cheekiness.

The following year I taught Y5, another very diverse class, with a small group of children who really struggled with reading. They could read the words in books (decode) but they had real problems with making sense of what they read. I found it hard to find books that would interest them, that were challenging enough but not so challenging that they would be put off reading them. Again, Dick King-Smith came up trumps (as did Anne Fine). The Hodgeheg (once they understood what a hedge was, and a hedgehog) was a winner. As well as having it as a group reading book I had a copy of it in the class library, and had to draw up a rota for the 5 children in the group to read it. Antwone's mum bought it for him at the bookfair, because it was the first time he went home talking about a book since he'd read Spot by himself in Y2.

So goodbye Dick King-Smith. I wonder if these classes, who will now be in their late teens and early twenties, have heard the news of your death, and remember reading your books when they were 8, 9 and 10. I hope they do.

Dick King-Smith was never Children's Laureate. I don't know if he would have wanted to be- I think he was quite happy on his farm in Gloucestershire, writing. Anthony Browne's tenure comes to an end later this year, and the public are invited to nominate an author. I have nominated Malorie Blackman, who I think would be a brilliant Laureate. She is a passionate advocate of reading, and writes consistently brilliant books for older children and young adults (she writes picture books too, but is more well known for her novels). You can listen to her on Radio 4's Open Book here, and while I love the Noughts and Crosses, I can't wait to read Boys Don't Cry. Who are you nominating?

Bookgifting- slightly off topic...

I gave two books this Christmas; one to a person who can read and one to a person who can't yet. I gave my dad this and my nephew (who is three, and can recognise the first letter of his name) this. A new Shirley Hughes book is such a delight that I bought it even though my sister will save it until next Christmas to read it to him.

My nephew is a lucky little boy, in terms of his reading development. He comes from an extended family that values reading. He has always been read and sung to (and since his mum, Nana and Auntie Ali are all teachers, he has people in his life who know the importance of this for his language and literacy development from birth). His dad, grandpa and his other auntie are all avid readers, talkers and all love stories and songs.

Even so, we are not experts in books for very small children (hence why I got it wrong with the Shirley Hughes book). We need advice from people who are experts in books for small children. This is why Booktrust and The Literacy Trust are so vitally important. The charity works with literacy experts and publishers, and the books are given by health visitors, not teachers or librarians. Health visitors come into the home, they have a long term, supportive relationship with the family and can talk about the importance of rhymes, reading and song to the baby's development. In addition, while poverty is most definitely an indicator that the child may struggle with reading later on (and of course the family may be poor due to the parents' poor literacy skills) there are plenty of families with a comfortable income who own very few books as well, and I have taught middle class children who had never been to a bookshop or library and chosen their own books either. In fact, I have taught children who were not allowed to touch their own books!

And if you'd like to get involved with bookgifting for adults, have a look at this! An amazing way to raise interest in reading in adults.

While this is extremely good news, pressure must be kept up on Michael Gove and the Department for Education, and the Literacy Trust and Booktrust must be supported. Please follow @savebookstart if you are on Twitter, like the Booktrust page on Facebook and write to your MP. The £13million (I believe) that Booktrust gets from DfE is a tiny amount of money to the government, but the good it does is incalculable.

Book meme

I've got a Christmas blog nearly written, and since University term is finally over, I have another idea brewing. So, apologies readers and followers, I may be a little prolific over the festive period! However, it would be nice to get to know you and your reading interests, so please do copy and paste this and fill it in in the comments section!


What’s the first book you remember really loving?

I think it was probably the Tale of Tom Kitten by Beatrix Potter. We got a cat when my sisters were very small (and the youngest was born when I was three), and I named him Samuel Whiskers after Beatrix Potter's rat in the Tale of Samuel Whiskers, which also featured Tom.




Name three authors who feature strongly in your reading history...
At the moment I'm very much on a Neil Gaiman trip. I've just finished Neverwhere and The Ananci Boys, and am about to start a collection of his short stories, Fragile Things. I think The Graveyard Book is absolutely wonderful. I probably read Jane Eyre annually, since I first read it aged 10, and I get something different from it every time I read it. My points of sympathy have changed over the 30 years from the child Jane, to the schoolgirl Jane, to Jane in love with Mr Rochester, to (at present) Blanche Ingram, without dowry and surely panicking about being left on the shelf. My MA dissertation was about the woman artist in mid Victorian fiction by women, and Jane's art was an inspiration. Diana Wynne Jones is an author I discovered all by myself in the library when I was (I think) 9 or 10. I read Charmed Life and fell head over heels with Chrestomanci, in his fancy dressing gown, and his defeat of the horrible Gwendolen.

What’s the very next book you’re going to pick off your TBR pile?
Kipling's Jungle Books. I haven't read them before; my dad read me the Just So stories, Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, and I read Kim a few years ago, but I don't remember reading the Jungle Books. I know that the Mowgli section is quite a small part, and that they were an inspiration for Gaiman's Graveyard Book. Also a pile of literary criticism and a growing list to read in the British Library!


What’s the very next book you’re thinking of buying/borrowing?
One of Marcus Sedgwick's, possibly the Book of Dead Days.

What’s the last book you read? What did you think?
Well, you'll have to wait for my special Christmas post to find out!

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

I don't remember much about learning to read at school. The mid to late 1970s was apparently a time of great innovation in Primary education. Radical teaching methods bypassed my Home Counties small-town Primary; my mum assures me that we learnt through the Phonic method- learning letter sounds and then building them in words, but I don't remember much about my first years at school except the home corner and fancying a boy called Paul Madison, because he had long hair and wore elasticated plimsolls.

I do remember Janet and John books. I'm not sure if they were the main reading scheme books we used- but I remember thinking they were boring and it was a lot of effort to sound out those words under the bland pictures, only to find out that Janet was helping mummy (Good girl, Janet!). Besides, my dad was reading me the Narnia books at home; they were exciting, full of plot and my dad is a brilliant reader-aloud, so I thought I wouldn't bother finding out whether Janet and John ever swapped roles, with John helping mummy (Good boy, John!) and I wasn't even motivated by their dog Darky (Look, Janet! See the dog run!)

Reading didn't make sense to me until I was nearly 7. I remember that it was wet play, and I was looking for something to do, and for some reason I went to the book corner. I hadn't gone there much because the book corner was two bookshelves, jointed in the middle. They joined together and could be locked, and were only used by the teacher and the "free readers" who no longer had to read Janet and John and the other more interesting reading scheme books for children who weren't "slow readers". I picked up a Through The Rainbow Silver reader. I remember it had a story about Robin Hood in it, and had very detailed coloured pictures. I could read it! When she came back from her break, I convinced my teacher to let me read it to her- and low and behold, I went from Slow Reader to Free Reader!

My strongest memories of reading at Primary school are in fact being read to. My teacher in 3rd and 4th year Juniors was called Mrs Stowell, and she read some great books to us. I have very strong memories of The Dark Is Rising, the second in the Dark Is Rising sequence. We were in a mobile classroom not far from Buckinghamshire, where Susan Cooper set the novel, although I can't say if that was why the book resonated so strongly with me: in fact, until I reread it I forgot it was set not far from where my aunt and uncle live. But the sense of place in the novel is extremely powerful. The fourth chapter, The Walker on the Old Way has a description which is so vivid I was convinced that the novel had been dramatised on children's television in the late 70s. Will Stanton, an eleven year old boy who is the seventh son of a seventh son, has discovered that he is one of the Old Ones, the defenders of the Light, who are striving to defeat the rising power of the Dark. Will has just discovered his power, but doesn't yet know how to use it, and on his way home after Christmas shopping, he decides to instruct a fallen branch to burn:
"And there on the snow, a the fallen arm of the tree burst into flame. Every inch of it, from the thich rotted base to the smallest twig, blazed with licking yellow fire. There was a hissing sound, and a tall shaft of brilliance rose from the fire like a pillar. No smoke came from the burning, and the flames were steady; twigs that should have blazed and crackled briefly and then fallen into ash burned continuously, as if fed with other fire within."
Will's impulsivity has a consequence of course: it attracts the Dark to him, but it also convinces the Walker, who has been doomed to carry the second Sign of Power for centuries, to give it up to him.

I read the whole of the Dark is Rising sequence because Mrs Stowell read to us. I think I bought Over Sea, Under Stone, Cooper's first children's novel. I vividly remember reading Greenwitch, where Will meets Simon, Jane and Barney Drew in Trewissick, Cornwall. The section where Jane joins the local women in building the Greenwitch, a pre-Christian fertility figure, has stayed with me for thirty years. (Thankfully Jane's character is much developed from the Anne from the Famous Five crossed with Susan from Swallows and Amazons in the earlier work). I look forward to re-reading the rest of the sequence: The Grey King and Silver on the Tree.