Seven Stories

The Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books were the co-sponsors for the Sixth Annual Fickling Lecture on Developments in Children’s Literature given by Roddy Doyle on 18 November at Newcastle University’s Curtis Auditorium.

Seven Stories, the first museum in the UK wholly dedicated to the art of British children’s books, is the only UK exhibition space solely celebrating British children’s literature.

Their exhibition programme is designed to spark the imaginations of children and adults, and inspire exciting new work. Activities give opportunities for dressing up, dramatic fun, creative writing and word play.

Story telling events are held for all the family. Author and illustrator events enable you to explore how they create their books. These events may be followed by book signings in the Bookshop which is one of the largest independent children’s bookshops in the country.

Seven Stories is located in the Ouseburn Valley close to Newcastle's quayside.

Find out more at http://www.sevenstories.org.uk/home/index.php

Fighting Words: the write to right.

The Sixth Fickling Lecture on Developments in Children’s Literature

  Fighting Words: the write to right

Thursday 18 November 2010 – Curtis Auditorium, Hershel Building, Newcastle University.

Fighting Words is the creative writing centre for children and young people opened in Dublin in 2009 by Roddy Doyle and Sean Love. The idea for the centre was inspired by 826 Valencia a creative writing centre in San Francisco founded by the American author, publisher and philanthropist Dave Eggers.

Fighting Words is the first European Member of the Once Upon a School movement established across deprived cities in America.

The deliberately misspelled slogan “The write to right” had the builders working on the exterior wanting to change the words and correct the spelling. “The write to right” has remained and this reinforces its invitation to children to: Write First, Worry Later.

It was a surprise when Roddy Doyle announced that he had never given a formal lecture before and that he would be reading from notes. This did not in any way distract from the message he put across to his audience.

What follows is taken from a few of my notes taken the time:

Roddy told of primary school children at Fighting Words, asked what was needed in a story, came up with ‘characters’ ‘things that are funny’ ‘full stops’. One 9 year waved her hand up and said ‘conflict and resolution’. It was obvious that it was bright bunch. After reflection Roddy found he was a bit depressed and that it was a pity that they knew the requirements for a story – before they had written anything.

As a 10 year old Roddy was asked to write a story. He was told by his teacher that what he was writing on his blotter was brilliant. Roddy reminded us that anything that isn’t brilliant in Ireland is disastrous. Nevertheless he never forgot being told he was brilliant.

Children need to be encouraged. Unfortunately the teaching of creative writing is not encouraging; although perhaps now it’s not encouraged in a more encouraging way. A child does not need to learn all the rules before beginning to write. If you give a child a ball he (or she) does not need to know the laws of association football before kicking it. Give the kid the ball the rules can come later. This football analogy applies to writing too. So give the kids the tools and let them get on with it.

Roddy explained how the Fighting Words centre operates. They have 400 volunteers and around 40 artists that are used to assist when a group of children attend. They sit on bean bags in front of a screen and are asked what they want to see in a story. A volunteer in front of the group puts up their suggestions on a screen, artists sketch their suggestions – sharks, three-eyed monsters whatever.

I hope these few notes give you a flavour of the lecture. I strongly recommend that you listen to it in full and the question and answer session at

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/events/public-lectures/item.php?roddy-doyle

Including the preamble and the introduction of Roddy Doyle by Kate Edwards the CEO of Seven Stories the recording lasts 1hr 35 minutes.

Fickling Lectures On Developments in Children's Literature

Fighting Words was the subject of the sixth Fickling lecture this year. Roddy Doyle was the speaker in the Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University on 18th November.

I'll post my notes on his talk in a later post. Meanwhile I hope you enjoy details of Nick Hornby's lecture from 2009:

Nick Hornby: Fifth Fickling Lecture

The Fickling Lectures on development in children’s literature were instigated with the support of David Fickling Books in response to the debate about the cultural importance of contemporary children’s literature. The inaugural lecture in 2005 was given by Philip Pullman; later lectures were delivered by Andrew Motion, James Naughtie, and Sandi Toksvig.

Nick Hornby’s lecture on 26 November 2009 was entitled “Why All Fiction should be Young Adult Fiction.”

“Books are more important than anything else,” was an early quote made by Nick Hornby in his look at young adult literature, the subject of reading and writing and the lessons for authors from books intended for a younger readership.

In 2006 a number of authors were asked to identify 10 books that all children should have read before they left school. Philip Pullman, J K Rowling were among those who made selections; many including Nick Hornby refused. Andrew Motion’s list was:

The Odyssey Homer
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Hamlet William Shakespeare
Paradise Lost John Milton
Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Portrait of a Lady Henry James
Ulysses James Joyce
The Waste Land TS Eliot

Hornby confessed that he had not read all these and though that such a list would put children off reading for life. He had abandoned reading Ulysses and recommended that if you were finding any book difficult to read you should do likewise. Books intended for you adults could be complex but should address situations reflecting life, even if fantasy or sci-fi. He made special reference to David Almond’s Skellig, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1998 and was the Whitbread Children’s Book of The Year. In 2007, judges for the CILIP Carnegie Medal for children’s literature considered Skellig to be one of the most important children’s novels of the last 70 years.

Children today have access to technology that didn’t exist in Nick’s youth so they will not necessarily pick up a book to read unless the content is interesting to them. In addition to Skellig He also mentioned M T Anderson’s Feed in which the story revolves around a teenage boy and his relationship with a girl with a vastly different world perspective. They live within a futuristic world where technology has merged electronics and telecommunications with the human mind.

I had not heard of the Alex Awards referred to by Nick; the Awards are made annually by the Young Adult Library Services Association and are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, selected from the previous year's publishing. Stephen King’s Just After Sunset was given an award this year. [The Alex Awards, first given annually in 1998, became an official American Library Association award in 2002. The Awards are named after Margaret A Edwards, known to her friends as ‘Alex,’ who pioneered young adult library services and who worked at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. See: www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/alex.]

Nick concluded that what was wanted for each person leaving school to be able to draw up list of 10 books that were their favourites; the content was not important. We want children to read for pleasure.

Interesting comments in the Q&A session that followed were that Nick regards writing as hard work and a job; reading is a pleasure. He also said that the average professional writer earned less than £5000 a year.

[You can listen to a recording of Nick Hornby’s lecture by following the link at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/events/public-lectures/item.php?nick-hornby-author