OK, I’ve got to write this as fast as possible because I
only have like an hour (it’s lunch!) and I really want to start on this because
I’ve been meaning to do so for quite a few weeks. Oh, and btw, I don’t know if
Americans will ‘get’ this, it might just be a totally British bunch of authors
but you should still buy these books for your kids, no matter what! They’ll
love you forever!
*deep breath*. So, to make this post relevant to its title,
I think it’s best if I start talking about awesome children’s authors. :-) Now, I should probably point out that I’m
talking about authors who wrote for say, 10 year olds – not like the really
little kids ones because that’s just… picture books, right?!
George Layton
OK, so this was the author of The Fib. The title of the book was The Fib but it was actually a collection
of short stories, the most popular of which was, yep, you guessed it – The Fib. He also had another collection
of short stories called The Swap
which was equally amazing. Now, George Layton was an absolutely fantastic
author. He wrote like such a typical child. You could really see where the main
character was coming from. His stories were always in the first person (at
least I think they were) and oh my, now that I think about it, they were all so
brilliant! They were written so well and best of all; they’re the kind of
stories that won’t go out of fashion if you get what I mean. Like, soon enough
people are going to forget about stuff like ‘Twilight’ but I seriously hope that George Layton’s books are never
forgotten: It would be an unforgivable crime. Stories he wrote included (these
synopses are VERY short!);
The
Fib – Kid’s rubbish at football, gets bullied, tells everyone his uncle is
a famous footballer. Then meets footballer who covers up for him – awesome!
The
Swap – Kid wants fireworks for Bonfire Night but his mum won’t buy him any.
Swaps his bike -yes, his bike! - for a bag of fireworks because he’s told his
friends that he has some. Sets them all off by accident INSIDE his house.
Gosh, I’m in a rush here but maybe one day
I’ll do a post all about Mr. George Layton because he seriously deserves it!
Enid Blyton was arguably the best female
children’s author of the 20th century. Why? Because her books were
timeless, easy to read but still insanely exciting. She did the whole lot;
mysteries, fantasies, school-based ones… OK, so not the ‘whole’ lot but it did
seem like she covered quite a few! The thing that I loved about Enid Blyton was
that she seemed to know what made children ‘tick’. She wrote about magical
lands at the top of a tree for heavens sake! Now that may sound ridiculous, but
to a child it’s utter heaven! Climbing up a huge tree where different fairies
and people live on each branch, with little houses built into the trunk, and
through a cloud at the top you find yourself in amazing magical lands. And if
that isn’t enough, the lands change all the time. And so it’s not always
perfect, Enid Blyton included some not-so-nice lands where you’d be rooting for
the children to escape from! Oh gosh, it takes me back! There were three books
in that series, I think. And away from that excitement you had her other books
about girls at boarding school (which sounds boring but were full of stuff like
midnight feasts and pranks) and her mystery ones, most noticeably The Famous Five, and, for slightly
younger readers; The Secret Seven and
then of course, Five Find-Outers and Dog.
Gosh, what a cute title! When I was a kid reading the mystery ones it was like
watching a Columbo episode; you knew who the bad guy was and you were SO
wanting him to get caught. Enid Blyton was brilliant and she had tonnes more
books too so maybe next time I’ll write a post dedicated to her too!
What can I say that hasn’t already been said
by thousands of people? Roald Dahl just had that gift, you know? And the thing
that I loved the most about him was that his books weren’t just strokes of
genius; he actually worked hard on each and every one – writing and rewriting
and making them perfect though he was never fully satisfied with the majority
of them. His books were full of beautiful, innocent children with magical views
of the world. And he wasn’t one of those authors that made adults into the good
guys; there were some absolutely horrible grown-ups and some beautiful ones.
Take Miss Honey vs Miss Trunchbull for example. The boy’s grandma in The
Witches versus The Grand High Witch. And Roald Dahl made up wonderful words and
wonderful places where good things happened to good children. And even if
things went slightly wrong, no-one was ad at the end. And aside from the children’s books he had a
collection of short stories too, for slightly older kids, which included my
mum’s all-time favourite book The
Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Roald Dahl was one of the very best in the
business. :-) Your children will adore you if you buy them his books… I swear
upon it. Charlie & The Chocolate Factory,
James & The Giant Peach, Boy,
The Giraffe and the Pelly & Me,
The Witches, The Twits, Matilda… so
many wonderful titles.
So, I lied. CS Lewis’ books are not for the
bookshelf of a ten year old because he/she will never understand them. His writing style takes a little while to
get your head around and I think I mostly appreciated (and understood) the
Narnia series when I was about twelve. If a kid picked up his book at the
library and flicked through it they’d be like, ‘Huh?’ and would probably put it
back down. In fact, I very nearly missed out on the wonderful mind of CS Lewis
because I thought it all sounded rather boring. But when I’d read all MY books
and my brother seemed absorbed by his stack of The Magician’s Nephew and The
Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe etc., I did the natural thing and picked
one up and read it. And from then on, I too was hooked. Seriously, people; a
land you disappear into for years and years and when you come back, only like
one minute has passed on Earth!? Just… words cannot describe how brilliantly CS
Lewis put across that concept. Those books are not to be missed!
So those are four of the children’s authors whose books
surrounded me as a child. This is why libraries should never be closed; even
kids who can’t afford to buy copies of good books, still get to read and enjoy
them. When you’re a child you can totally just escape into a fictional world. I
have such good memories of curling up in my bottom bunk on a rainy afternoon
with a bag of books from the library and reading each one from cover to cover.
Ah, the Good Ol’ Days!
NEXT TIME: Well, OK, maybe not my next post, but definitely one in the near future will talk about
Jacqueline Wilson, JK Rowling, Michael Brown and AA Milne. *So excited*
#NowPlaying ~ Six Degrees of Separation by The Script
*My little sister says I’m obsessed with The Script but hey,
at least I’m not obsessed with some crappy boy-band like One Direction (who
totally ruined Ed Sheeran’s song) :’-(
#SoonToBePlaying ~ The Scientist by Coldplay
*I must add here that Coldplay, The Script, Lawson, Train,
Maroon 5 etc. are not boy-bands! They are just ‘bands’ (or maybe ‘man-bands’.)
