Taking Children’s Literature Seriously

MICHAEL MORPURGO is one of the country’s best-selling writers for children and young people, and is the third person to hold the post of Children’s Laureate after Quentin Blake and Anne Fine. He takes both his work and his position seriously, and his imminent visit to theHighlandsis all part of a day’s work as the Laureate, a post he helped to create. Michael explains how it all came about, and what it is intended to achieve.

THE CHILDREN’S LAUREATE was cooked up over an after-dinner chat. I suppose it must be seven years ago now. I happened to be neighbours and good friends with the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, and we were discussing the problem that children’s literature has traditionally had, certainly in England, in being somewhat sidelined and maybe even looked down upon by adults, and certainly by the literary establishment.

He was talking about his own work, and of course he wrote a lot for children as well as adults, and he felt it was ridiculous that people split them up as they did, given that it was all coming from the same person and the same source, and all that really mattered was whether it was good or not, not who it was for.

I wondered out loud what could be done about it, and it occurred to me that Ted was Poet Laureate, and part of his responsibility was to be up there banging the drum for poetry, and I said well, if it works for poetry, why don’t we have a children’s laureate?

Ted seized on it immediately – he was like that. He said well let’s do it, don’t let’s talk about it, and immediately he wrote down the names of several people we should contact, including the relevant Minister at the time, who happened to be Chris Smith. I wrote letters off to each of the people he named, and the upshot of it all was within months rather than years we had the whole thing set up, and Quentin Blake was appointed as our first Children’s Laureate. Sadly by this time Ted had died, and never saw the appointment made.

The Laureate was really an attempt to raise the profile of children’s literature, but also to bring adults to an appreciation of what is good about it. At the same time we wanted to spread enthusiasm amongst children for good books and stories and illustration, and these were the main planks of the thing as we conceived it.

Each Laureate is not bound to it, but if you accept the honour the idea is that you will go out there and seize the thing that is unique or of most interest to you. Sir Quentin Blake was wonderful, and brought an understanding of illustration to a wider public, including a marvellous exhibition of the work of the great masters of children’s illustration at the National Gallery in London.
 
Anne Fine came in after Quentin, and she was very strong on – and very angry about – the closing and downgrading of libraries, and also banged the drum for higher standards in children’s literature.

“I think if I have any merit as a writer it is that I can tell a tale very directly, and leave the reader, child or adult, to do the exciting bit, which is to interpret the words”

AS I SAW IT, my particular platform was to try to spread the sheer enjoyment of stories as far and wide as possible, and get beyond the idea that books are just something you study in school and have to answer questions about. I want to revive and encourage the idea of books as kind of personal and even rather secret form of communication between a writer and a reader.

The reason for coming toScotlandis partly that I wanted to go out to places where writers don’t necessarily often go. I have been visiting the big cities, including my visit to Inverness, but I’ve also been out to small communities in Argyll, for example, and this time I’m going over to do a number of school visits in the Western Isles.

I have never been that far north inScotland, so I am looking forward to it immensely. The first writer-hero I discovered was your own Robert Louis Stevenson. He is the kind of writer I would love to be. For me, he did it all in children’s literature, and did it brilliantly. When you look at how he writes and the way he builds character and plot and so on, you see just how good he was. His sense of place was marvellous as well – for many years I had never, ever been toScotland, but in my heart I had been there hundreds of times through reading him.

I think if I have any merit as a writer it is that I can tell a tale very directly, and leave the reader, child or adult, to do the exciting bit, which is to interpret the words and see the pictures and hear the sounds that I have given them directions for. You have to write about what you care about, to be yourself and tell the story from the heart, and hope that it resonates with them.

As a former teacher I feel quite at home in schools, although I do find it very exhausting, but I have promised myself I am going to do it for the two years that I am Laureate. Mind you, I am spoiling myself – as well asInvernessand the Scottish islands, I’m going toFrance,Uganda,South Africa, places I have never been. This is a splendid way to combine my work with seeing new places. Rather canny of me, I think!

Michael Morpurgo is the Children’s Laureate, 2003-2005. He has written over 100 books, including Why the Whales Came, which has been made into a major feature film, and My Friend Walter, filmed by Thames Television. His most recent novel is Private Peaceful. He won the Children’s Book Award in 2000 and the Smarties Prize and Whitbread Children’s Book Award. He recently achieved critical acclaim for his book Out of the Ashes, a moving novel about the foot and mouth crisis which was adapted for television. Michael visits Scotland under the aegis of the Children’s Laureate and the Scottish Book Trust. His public appearance in Inverness on 11 June as part of the Highland Festival is sold out.

(Michael Morpurgo spoke to Kenny Mathieson)

© Kenny Mathieson, 2004
 

Related Links

• Children’s Laureate website
• Scottish Book Trust website