Authors Electric

Happy panellists: (l to r) Mary Hoffman, Anne Rooney (chair), me, Sue Limb Last Saturday I was invited back to my university college to take part in a fascinating Literary Archive Day discussing children's literature, inspired by the Rogers Collection, a wonderful treasure trove of children's books donated to Newnham College in the late nineteenth century. No other college library in Cambridge – or Oxford, I believe, though someone will probably put me right – has anything to match this. What better reason to gather together a bunch of Newnhamite children's authors? The Rogers Collection Christina Hardyment and Caroline Lawrence gave superb talks on Arthur Ransome and Mythic Tropes in Children’s Fiction respectively, while I made up a panel with Mary Hoffman and Sue Limb to discuss how children's writing has changed over the last few decades. An excellent opening speech from Dr Gill Sutherland ('A child who does not feel wonder is merely an inle...

On Facebook this week, Guardian Teen Books was asking ‘Where are all the girls in adventure-ready trousers ’ in children’s books today. If you can think of any, they want to know.   Why? Thought we’d won that battle. I recommended my battle-ready girls, Joan of Arc’s friend, Mariane, Viking girl, Beren,  and Aoife, my Druid elephant keeper but I don’t think they meant our heroines from past ages.   No, what they had in mind, I think, was feisty tomboys, girls ready to explore and jump from rock to rock and light fires, capable, brave, self-sufficient and hardy. That sort of thing.  Well, where are they, then, and why is the Guardian asking? Are they suggesting that writers practise some kind of social manipulation, by inventing a certain kind of female role model?  Mm.   It set me thinking about the role children’s books play in children’s lives. Do they reflect them, exploring real problems, or do they actually mould them, to promote...