News: Charlie Higson writes in The Guardian about his Top Ten Fantasy Book For Children

Thanks to the wonders of Twitter I spotted this article on The Guardian website the other day. Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond series, wrote about his Top Ten Fantasy Books for Children on the day that The Fear, the third book in his brilliant zombie series, was published by Puffin. Quite often I read these lists and feel guilty that I haven't read many of the books on them, but this time I was relieved to see that not only had I read a number of them, but they were also some of my favourites. The list is as follows:


1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
2. Tales of the Greek Heroes by Roger Lancellyn Green
3. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peak
4. The Knight of the Swords by Michael Moorcock
5. The Earthsea Quartet by Ursual le Guin
6. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
7. The Vampire's Assistant by Darren Shan
8. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
9. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
10. Neuromancer by William Gibson


I have put in bold the ones I have read, and yes, I know I really should have read The Earthsea Quartet but the books were never introduced to me as a child and these days there just isn't time in the day although I have pledged to read them one day. One or two of the books on this are certainly more for teens than children (Titus Groan and Neuromancer) but otherwise this looks like a well-balanced list between old and modern fantasy stories. And if you can't be bothered to click the link to The Guardian article and you are wondering where the likes of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are then Charlie Higson says: "Inevitably I got around to Tolkien. He's missing from the list, as are the Narnia books, because I suppose they're taken as read." My favourite part of the whole article though goes to his heartfelt comments about JK Rowling, sentiments that I agree with 100%. Great list Mr Higson!


Finding this link also led to me stumbling across this brilliant promotional video for the book. The Fast Show didn't do book promos but if they did I imagine it would have looked something like this. It certainly had me racing over to Amazon to order a copy of The Fear:

Roald Dahl Day 2011: Guest Post by William Hussey (author of the Witchfinder series)

As promised earlier today, here is the great piece that William Hussey wrote for me to help The Book Zone celebrate Roald Dahl Day 2011. One of the things I love the most about running The Book Zone is the chance it has given me to interact with some of my favourite authors, especially when they are so passionate about books and encouraging kids to read for enjoyment. Massive thanks to William, as well as Sarwat, Ivan and Will who shared their thoughts about Roald Dahl with us earlier today.

William Hussey (author of the Witchfinder series) 

It’s my experience, based on thousands of pupils at hundreds of schools, that  kids love being read to. Not just kids, either – a lot of teachers seem to get a kick out of it as well! Anthropologists, psychologists and lots of other clever clogs with ‘ist’ at the end of their title would probably be able to explain to you far better than I ever could why this is so. All I know is that people really enjoy hearing stories read out loud. As long as the tale’s engrossing and the teller is able to put a bit of oomph into the telling, then an audience will lap it up.

Hearing stories read aloud is a very different psychological experience from sitting down and reading a book yourself. Again, I’m no expert, but words entering through your ears rather than your eyes seem to do different things to different parts of the brain. Imagination is stimulated wonderfully by both experiences, but the sensations that accompany them vary hugely. I think it is absolutely vital that, in their youth, writers have exposure to both private reading and being read to – lots and lots of exposure if possible! Reading by yourself gives you an idea of story structure, character development, how sentences and paragraphs are put together. Being read to gives you an appreciation for the flow of words and how they can create atmosphere that leaps off the page.

I was very lucky in that I grew up in a house chock full of books, and that my parents and grandparents read to me every night. Not only that, my primary school had a dedicated ‘story time’ every day. I remember half a dozen excellent teachers reading to us over the years while we curled up on the carpet, cross-legged, eyes wide, mouths agape. My favourite teacher, and by far the best storyteller, was Mrs Tish. She was a master of voices, the subtle inflection to change mood, the quickening of pace at exciting bits. Mrs Tish loved CS Lewis and Roald Dahl, so by the time I’d moved on to high school we’d journeyed with her through all the known lands of Narnia and into the deepest, darkest imaginings of Mr Dahl.

I remember the heart-warming adventures of the father and son poachers in ‘Danny, the Champion of the World’; the hilarious antics of that most grisly of couples, ‘The Twits’; and, of course, the wish-fulfilment fantasy that beats all others, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. But my absolute favourite, read with all the feeling and gusto Mrs Tish could muster, was Dahl’s delightfully devilish ‘The Witches’. First off, it was a horror story for kids – a common enough thing now (thank God!), but a rarity in my young days. By this time my reading appetites had already turned to old horror comics like ‘Tales from the Crypt’ and ‘The Haunt of Fear’, so I lapped up this dark (and very funny) story of a young boy’s campaign to thwart all the witches of England.

I also loved Dahl’s new take on witches. These weren’t the hook-nosed, black hat-sporting hags from fairytales. They looked like sweet, innocent ladies… until they removed their wigs and slipped off their shoes. Shudder. And then there was the Grand High Witch herself, and the monstrous secret hiding behind that mask of hers. I’ve since read all the grown-up tales of the macabre penned by Dahl, but honestly, not one of them comes close to the nail-biting creepiness of ‘The Witches’. The book has lived so long in my memory that I decided to pay it homage in the last Witchfinder book – check out the chapter ‘Catechism of the Canvas Man’ in ‘The Last Nightfall’, then go back to ‘The Witches’ and the bit where the grandmother tells the story about the little girl from her village.

A book that can chill your marrow on a drowsy summer afternoon in the safe environment of a primary school classroom is worth its weight in gold. By way of the brilliant Mrs Tish, Mr Dahl helped set me on the road to a career scaring children!

Roald Dahl Day 2011

Today is Roald Dahl Day so let the celebrations commence! As legends from the world of chidlren's fiction go you don't get much bigger than Roald Dahl and so last year I wrote this post to celebrate. Obviously being nothing but a mere blogger I thought at the time I would turn to a few of the super-talented friends of The Book Zone to share their thoughts about the man himself and what his work meant to them. Reading their pieces gave me so much enjoyment that I thought what better way to celebrate in 2011 than do it all over again? And so today I am joined by three authors who between them have written some of my favourite books of the past two years: Ivan Brett, Sarwat Chadda and Will Hill. Another of my favourite recent authors, William Hussey, is such a huge fan of Roald Dahl that he wrote a super-long piece for me and so I am going to give it the hnour of its own spot here on The Book Zone later today, so please come back, I guarantee you will not be disappointed. And so, without further ado, let me hand you over to the experts:

Ivan Brett (author of Casper Candlewacks: Death By Pigeon) 

When I was at school, Roald Dahl's books had become such a staple that 'discovering' him was impossible. Of course he inspired me, and the likes of George's Marvellous Medicine and The Witches constantly pop up in my mind when they're not supposed to. But Roald Dahl made his biggest impression on me a decade later when I started reading his adult short stories. The economy of writing is superb: every word is necessary. Add to this the macabre plot twists and irreverent use of language, he's absolutely perfect the art. I'll contend that nobody can ever beat him when it comes to short fiction. I'd recommend the short story collections 'Someone Like You' and 'Kiss Kiss' to newcomers, but there's plenty else around, none of it what you'd expect. (On that note, read them alone before reading them to your kids.)

Three years ago, I started writing short stories because of Roald Dahl. Two years ago, I switched to Children's fiction, probably because of the same guy. What's next? (I'll probably steer clear of mimicking the style of 'My Uncle Oswald', if you're wondering.)

Sarwat Chadda (author of Devil's Kiss and Dark Goddess) 

My latest encounter with Mr. Dahl was listening to his narration of the Fantastic Mr. Fox. I’d seen the movie recently and thought, hey, this will be one for the kids to listen to as we drive around on holiday.

By the end of the journey there were tears and trauma all round.

 
Have you read the Fantastic Mr. Fox? I've never suffered an anxiety attack before but that probably was the closest. It comes across as the book Hannibel Lecter should have written. Mutilations, brutality and in one scene, Mr. Fox's children ask their parents in anxious, timid voices if there will be dogs set on them.

Setting DOGS ON CHILDREN?

What modern author could get away with that? What modern author would even think of it?

His figures are grotesque, macabre and magnificent. Dahl doesn’t care who gets upset and has nightmares, Dahl never let anything stand in the way of his story. That’s what I love about him. By all accounts he wasn’t a nice man at all and maybe that’s why he’s the GREATEST CHILDREN’S AUTHOR EVER.

I think we’ve become more guarded about what we feed our children, like those Victorians who sanitised those nasty, sexual fairy tales. We ‘age band’ and shelve according to tastes while childhood should be all about exploring the widest worlds possible, not tucking books into ‘For Teens’ or for ‘Mature Readers’. Dahl’s stories were utterly immature and utterly without fear. No-one wrote more frightening, edgy tales than he and then (stroke of genius or what?) fed them to us when we were tiny and impressionable.

Will Hill (author of Department 19) 

While I don’t believe that a writer has to live an interesting and exciting life to write interesting and exciting stories, it certainly couldn’t hurt to have lived the life that Roald Dahl brings beautifully and joyously to life in my two favourite books of his, Boy and Going Solo.

The seeds of the novels with which he would later spellbind generations of children (and adults!) are there for all to see – the larger-than-life cast of eccentric adults, the sense of adventure lurking around every corner, the plots children hatch, often to get even with injustices committed by the grown-ups that surround them, are all wrapped up in the fierce sense of love and loyalty that clearly filled the Dahl clan.

Boy covers his time at Llandaff Cathedral School, St. Peter’s School and at Repton, the three institutions that act as the backdrop for his formative years. He encounters triumph (the boxes of chocolates that Cadbury’s ask him and his classmates to review, a gloriously wicked revenge against a local sweet shop owner) alongside his first understanding that the adult world can be unfair, and even cruel (I still find his account of being given ten strokes with the cane very hard to read) before he joins it for himself in the pages of Going Solo.

The second volume chronicles a life that seems almost too full of adventure and derring-do to be real – the young Dahl is shipped out to Tanganyika (as was) to work for Shell, and finds himself surrounded by an astonishing cast of utterly bonkers ex-pat colonials, local tribesmen, snakes, scorpions, lions, and every other conceivable joy. Until the late 1930s, when war comes to the continent, and Dahl joins the RAF as a fighter pilot.

That’s right.
The man who would later devote himself to words, to quietly writing masterpieces of children’s literature in his shed in Great Missenden, spends many months of the Second World War throwing Tiger Moths and Hurricanes around the skies over Egypt and Greece, dogfighting with German fighters and chasing bombers to their targets, experiencing the euphoria and terror of combat, and sustaining terrible injury along the way. It’s almost unbelievable. But it happened, every word of it.



I won’t say any more, as to give away any of the wonders in these two fabulous books (written, as always, in Dahl’s inimitably witty and caustic style) would be a crime for which I can’t think of a suitable punishment. But as pieces of autobiography, as insights into the perennial question of where a writer gets his ideas, and as works of brilliant, effortless storytelling, they succeed on every level, and I defy anyone who reads them to feel otherwise.

~~~

Huge, huge thanks to Ivan, Will and Sarwat for taking the time to do this for The Book Zone. I hope all the readers of this blog have a wonderful Roald Dahl Day and don;t forget to come back later for William Hussey's fab guest post. Last year I celebrated by reading The BFG; this evening it is going to be the turn of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Anyone for some Whipplescrumptiousfudgemallowdelight?