In a debate where children, publishers, librarians and writers sat in a circle to discuss what it is we should be writing/publishing for children, I found myself the lone voice against writers taking too much note about what children had to say about what they wanted to read ( not unexpectedly, soccer, gore and violence for boys and romance with happy endings for girls).
Was this the stance of an arrogant, selfish writer who always knows better, who asserts her own rights and interests above the children she writes for? Is largely dismissing what the children said a sign of being “out of touch”?
I do not think so.
Asking children what they like only scratches the surface. Very few children, if any, can express what they are about in a meaningful way ( Few adults can, either!) As authors we respond to what we know is there below, our common humanity, as yet undeveloped, latent even, but requiring the most skilful teasing to bring it gently to the child’s attention – the job of the writer.
Children are indiscriminate consumers. They are surrounded by cultural products which have shaped their opinions well before we get our hands on them. Other adults have stuffed them on a diet to which they have become addicted in the form of media, advertising, TV etc. They cannot express what it is that innately interests them but rather reflect what is already out there. How can one assert that the children have chosen freely when they are not even aware of the possibilities that lie outside the uber sex-streamed range of which the children who attended the meeting made mention? It is the task of authors to grow children’s minds by getting them to fall in love with what they could not choose because they did not know it existed before they were exposed to it. The role of the adult, be it parent, teacher or librarian is crucial in introducing to children possibilities that they would not necessarily choose off their own bat.
It would take an extremely brave and sussed child to ask for a book to be written about a gay older brother but expose a child who is working on these issues on some unconscious level and you begin to make a difference. Write a book that is consciously aimed to hit the boy spot with violence/gore or girl spot with romance and syrupy endings and you are very likely to miss the spot completely, miss the opportunity, miss the point of literature. Yes, that big word, literature.
Does this mean that books should be educational, serious, boring, didactic, dull, teachy-preachy, lack humour? On the contrary! Our books should be hilariously funny, spine-chillingly creepy, deeply profound, culture-authentic to a tee, blanket-comforting, exciting, exciting, exciting (If not all these things in one book, at least some!). No author worth their salt should aim for anything less than this. That has to do with bringing all of what we have – our skill, imagination, humanity, insight – to bear on what we do even if we are writing a 3 word a page story about a rat in a trap.
As a parent one knows not to cave in to a diet of ice cream and sweets because one recognises that this is not what the child really wants (and is clearly not good for her). Similarly, while the expressed desires of our readership is useful – the act of asking children their opinion is enormously important in the development of their own self-understanding – we should remain cheerfully sceptical about the nuts and bolts of what they tell us.
Does this mean that there is no place for comfortable, predictable reads – those series that children love ? Of course, there is and should be. However, I feel that we have an opportunity, whatever the genre we write, to bring to the light of print underneath a child’s eye a whole lot more than what they simply tell us they want.
Let me repeat: children are indiscriminate consumers. Ask the average 7 year old to choose which illustrations they like best from an array of picture books and most children will choose the worst: treacly Disney caricatures or suchlike in line with what they see on the box. It is the responsibility of publishers to put the highest quality illustrations in our books to lead children into the pleasures of engaging with the very best and slowly build in children the ability to discriminate.
This is not a plea to maintain a cosy, middle class status quo. It is even more important in poorer and more deprived areas that the books we create are simply gorgeous – both visually and story-wise. Where there is little, they can shine and attract.
Getting children to read at all costs is a slippery slope…
Do not short-change our children.