Authors Electric

Wikipedia  I was talking to an old friend of mine recently about something I’d read; children who have been lied to assume that everyone lies, and therefore have no compunction about doing it themselves. But if you delve into this a little more deeply, it becomes very interesting and relevant to what we write for children. Both about lying, and telling the truth. My children found the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons much funnier than I did. Calvin is a six-year-old boy and Hobbes is his stuffed toy tiger, whom he addresses as a sentient being although all the other characters treat him as a toy. Calvin has a vivid imagination, and comes out with some great one-liners such as : “Reality continues to ruin my life.” But it’s the stories his father tells him that made the impact on me. He makes up ludicrous explanations to some of Calvin's awkward questions such as where do babies come from: “You can buy assembly kits at Sears and K Mart.” Or how the load limit for bridges is calcul...

Santa, in fetching scarlet and white, drops by Chessington World of Adventures When my children became teenagers, they told me something that shattered my illusions about Father Christmas.   Not whether he existed or not – even I knew the answer to that – but what he’s supposed to wear. The traditional red suit with white cuffs matching his snowy beard is apparently not traditional at all, but the result of a cynical advertising campaign by Coca Cola in the 1930s, forever associating the plump, jolly, big-hearted Santa Claus with the fizzy drink. Until then, Santa had boasted a lean, trim figure, clothed in a long, green robe. Well, there was only one answer to that. Utter nonsense. Teenagers think they know everything. Father Christmas/Santa Claus is depicted wearing red because he’s always worn red. Look at Christmas cards, films, book illustrations, department stores (all post 1930s, I admit). My mind flew back to my German childhood in the 1960s … and uncovered a me...