Authors Electric

  Times have changed. The Story of the Little Mole who Knew it was None of his Business would never have seen the light of day in the 1950s, even though it was a jolly good guide to identifying animal poo. Natural history investigation wasn’t discouraged in the 20 th century, but it was more a case of scoring points over your mates. I-Spy books were actually pretty good, but oh how the order of high and low-scoring birds has changed. Magpies were unusual, and egrets and ring-necked parakeets unknown. Yellowhammers weren’t uncommon at all. The other books I treasured were the Observer books, affordable on a couple of weeks’ pocket money at 5 shillings a go, which tackled everything from Aircraft to Moths, Freshwater Fishes, Birds Eggs and Wild Animals – British, obviously. In those days moles were the villains, who desecrated golf courses and bowling greens, and we even had books in which country types wore moleskin weskits (waistcoats). Foxhunting wasn’t frowned on in pony books...

I don't usually read one book after another, because I'm a slow reader, and I usually prefer to digest and contemplate one book at a time. However, I am currently emerging from a mini Reading Binge. This has come about because, like a lot of people, I buy far more e-books than I can actually read at that moment, assuming they'd always be there in a period of book famine which rarely happens as I live in a house very amply stocked with real print books. However, I've been doing Early-to-Bed-with-a-Kindle stuff in the last few months of extended convalescence from ankle surgery, and Kindles are so much easier to manage physically, although irritating in other ways. And so it was that I discovered books I'd never read, among them one by friend and fellow author, Adele Geras. I'd first met Adele at a Scattered Authors conference aeons ago, and found her rather terrifyingly impressive, but in all the intervening years, I'd never read her work, until lo! there ...

Last week, in all the uproar surrounding the European elections and the government reeling from crisis to crisis, something happened that put other news in the shade: Judith Kerr died. One of the greatest and most loved children’s authors ever, she was responsible for The Tiger Who Came to Tea , Mog the Forgetful Cat and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit – classics which will never go out of print because, well, who can imagine a world without them? To be able to write and illustrate as brilliantly as Kerr did is a rare gift. I can think of only a handful of other authors who are in her league: Erics Carle and Hill with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where’s Spot respectively; John Burningham, Jill Murphy and Babette Cole with numerous books apiece; and of course, the master of animal delineation, characterisation and humour, Beatrix Potter. But for me Judith Kerr stands out because in The Tiger Who Came to Tea , she created the Picture Book of Picture Books. ...

          I have recently become a grandmother for the first time, and it’s just as thrilling as people said it would be.  All the fun and none of the responsibility.  And lots to look forward to.           In particular, storytelling.  When I was a mother of very young children, the best bit by far and away was reading aloud, or making up stories, having a soft, warm body snuggling up on my lap, waiting expectantly to be entertained.  My older daughter loved books with flaps you opened to see the pictures – so much so, she wouldn’t look at any others.  So I had to ‘fix’ her other books by sticking home-made flaps in strategic places.  My younger daughter was one of those readers who had favourite books that she requested over and over again.  Even I got fed up, so I decided to take her to our local library to borrow some new books.  She was madly exc...