A perfect day
We've just driven back from a day at the coast - dog and children sleeping soundly. It's one of my earliest and happiest memories - being driven home at sunset from the beach in north Devon by my parents, curled up in a warm car with sunburnt skin and sand in my toes, a new copy of the next Malory Towers at page one. It was such a treat to be allowed to choose a yellowed, sunbleached paperback from the wire carousel outside the beach shop, the perfect end to a perfect day. I desperately wanted to go to boarding school, and lost myself in a world of midnight feasts, ponies, derring-do, high teas and lashings of ginger pop. Enid Blyton has just been voted the best-loved author in the UK. Finally! Admitting to enjoying Enid Blyton when you were younger has until now been the love that dare not speak its name.
I can see the same hunger for books I felt in our daughter. She's currently devouring every Roald Dahl she can lay her hands on, but hasn't yet discovered Malory Towers, or the Famous Five. She is very into Jaqueline Wilson - and we have had to have conversations about the difference between watching Tracy Beaker and emulating her cockiness (not particularly charming in a six year old). Wilson is pretty gritty stuff (and I've had to veto some of the books as she is just not ready to deal with the topics covered). Explaining divorce - that some Mummies and Daddies don't live together, and some of the reasons children end up in care homes were hard enough. Harry Potter is another matter entirely - and raised interesting conversations about the difference between fact and fiction. I hadn't fully appreciated that children just don't draw that distinction unless it is clearly pointed out that some stories are make believe (and films are acted by children who are actors, not young boy wizards).
I can see the same hunger for books I felt in our daughter. She's currently devouring every Roald Dahl she can lay her hands on, but hasn't yet discovered Malory Towers, or the Famous Five. She is very into Jaqueline Wilson - and we have had to have conversations about the difference between watching Tracy Beaker and emulating her cockiness (not particularly charming in a six year old). Wilson is pretty gritty stuff (and I've had to veto some of the books as she is just not ready to deal with the topics covered). Explaining divorce - that some Mummies and Daddies don't live together, and some of the reasons children end up in care homes were hard enough. Harry Potter is another matter entirely - and raised interesting conversations about the difference between fact and fiction. I hadn't fully appreciated that children just don't draw that distinction unless it is clearly pointed out that some stories are make believe (and films are acted by children who are actors, not young boy wizards).
For a while it was just not done to admit at school to reading Enid Blyton (what did they expect? Tolstoy?). I soon moved on - discovered P G Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, then went through a huge Agatha Christie phase. Driving back from the beach tonight it did make me wonder whether the gentler world of Blyton would appeal to our daughter - or whether it would all seem a little passe to one who has already discovered Wilson and Rowling. Perhaps it is time to revisit the first term at Malory Towers as we all start to think about going back to school.
TODAY'S PROMPT: Who were your favourite children's authors? Is there someone you haven't yet shared with your children? As a writer if you had to choose between being well loved or well regarded (ie, literary/critical acclaim) which would you choose?
TODAY'S PROMPT: Who were your favourite children's authors? Is there someone you haven't yet shared with your children? As a writer if you had to choose between being well loved or well regarded (ie, literary/critical acclaim) which would you choose?
