Roddy Doyle has done it, Isabel Allende has done it, Ian McKewan has done it, but can you think of one of them who has done it really well? Written a childrenês book, I mean. (Actually, there is one: Salman Rushdieês –Haroun and the Sea of Stories” but letês not spoil a good argument). And there are rumours that even more adult writers are turning to the juvenile lists, perhaps tempted by the high profile and rumours of money to be made. And then the publishers want to re-package adult novels for children too. I saw –The Life of Pi” in its teenage cover in the States last month.
I blame –crossover fiction” myself. Too many of our own junior and teenage novels have been embraced by 20- and 30-somethings. First Harry Potter and His Dark Materials, then The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
The latest candidate is Jennifer Donnellyês –A Gathering Light” (called –A Northern Light” in the US and re-titled to avoid confusion in the UK market). It is the second American book published by Bloomsbury to win the Carnegie Medal in two years. (Sharon Creechês Ruby Holler won the 2002 one). This is perhaps not the place to argue that US titles should be ineligible, unless British ones could win the Newbery but this subject will crop up again.
–A Gathering Light” is a good book and people are again surprised to find that someone writing for young readers can produce such a thing. But Donnelly made a good point in the Guardian (10.7.04): –What is so important about the crossover novel... is not what it says about adults but what it says to children ® that the stories which matter to them matter to us as well.” Wise lady.
But an irrational annoyance overtakes me when I hear that the great and the good of the Booker shortlist world are being signed up to write books for children. Isnêt it enough that they hog the review column-inches with their present titles? That they have the prestige at the literary festivals? That they are the writers of 'proper booksê (as in –When are you going to write a proper book?”)
Their offerings, whether successful or not, will be respectfully reviewed and doubtless shortlisted for prizes, putting even more pressure on those of us whose small pond this is. Will children and teenagers read them, though?
I know what Iêm going to do about it. And I urge all you childrenês writers out there to do the same. Inspired by Peter Dickinson, Anne Fine, Adúle Geras and a host of others, I shall write an adult novel. And look forward to all those headlines in the Bookseller and Publishing News saying, –Moderately successful childrenês writer storms adult bestseller lists.”
Well, clouds are good for dreaming on.
~ Mary Hoffman