Michael Morpurgo
|
|
|
| June 2004 Interview: Michael Morpurgo |
Taking Children’s Literature Seriously |
|
MICHAEL MORPURGO is one of the country’s best-selling writers for children and young people, and is the third person to hold the post of Children’s Laureate after Quentin Blake and Anne Fine. He takes both his work and his position seriously, and his imminent visit to the Highlands is all part of a day’s work as the Laureate, a post he helped to create. Michael explains how it all came about, and what it is intended to achieve. |
|
THE CHILDREN’S LAUREATE was cooked up over an
after-dinner chat. I suppose it must be seven years ago now. I happened to be
neighbours and good friends with the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, and we were
discussing the problem that children’s literature has traditionally had,
certainly in England, in being somewhat sidelined and maybe even looked down
upon by adults, and certainly by the literary
establishment.
|
 | | Michael Morpurgo © www.childrenslaureate.org |
|
He was talking about his own work, and of course he
wrote a lot for children as well as adults, and he felt it was ridiculous that
people split them up as they did, given that it was all coming from the same
person and the same source, and all that really mattered was whether it was good
or not, not who it was for.
|
|
I wondered out loud what could be done about it, and
it occurred to me that Ted was Poet Laureate, and part of his responsibility was
to be up there banging the drum for poetry, and I said well, if it works for
poetry, why don’t we have a children’s laureate?
|
|
Ted seized on it immediately – he was like that. He said
well let’s do it, don’t let’s talk about it, and immediately he wrote down the
names of several people we should contact, including the relevant Minister at
the time, who happened to be Chris Smith. I wrote letters off to each of the
people he named, and the upshot of it all was within months rather than years we
had the whole thing set up, and Quentin Blake was appointed as our first
Children’s Laureate. Sadly by this time Ted had died, and never saw the
appointment made.
|
 | | Michael Morpurgo taking a class © www.childrenslaureate.org |
|
The Laureate was really an attempt to raise the profile of children’s literature, but also to bring adults to an appreciation of what is good about it. At the same time we wanted to spread enthusiasm amongst children for good books and stories and illustration, and these were the main planks of the thing as we conceived it.
Each Laureate is not bound to it, but if you accept the honour the idea is that you will go out there and seize the thing that is unique or of most interest to you. Sir Quentin Blake was wonderful, and brought an understanding of illustration to a wider public, including a marvellous exhibition of the work of the great masters of children’s illustration at the National Gallery in London.
Anne Fine came in after Quentin, and she was very strong on – and very angry about – the closing and downgrading of libraries, and also banged the drum for higher standards in children’s literature.
“I think if I have any merit as a writer it is that I can tell a tale very directly, and leave the reader, child or adult, to do the exciting bit, which is to interpret the words”
|
|
AS I SAW IT, my particular platform was to try to spread the sheer enjoyment
of stories as far and wide as possible, and get beyond the idea that books are
just something you study in school and have to answer questions about. I want to
revive and encourage the idea of books as kind of personal and even rather
secret form of communication between a writer and a reader.
The reason for coming toScotland is
partly that I wanted to go out to places where writers don’t necessarily often
go. I have been visiting the big cities, including my visit to
Inverness, but I’ve also been out to small communities in
Argyll, for example, and this time I’m going over to do a number of school
visits in the Western Isles.
|
|
| I have never been that far north inScotland, so I am
looking forward to it immensely. The first writer-hero I discovered was your own
Robert Louis Stevenson. He is the kind of writer I would love to be. For me, he
did it all in children’s literature, and did it brilliantly. When you look at how
he writes and the way he builds character and plot and so on, you see just how
good he was. His sense of place was marvellous as well – for many years I had
never, ever been to
Scotland, but in
my heart I had been there hundreds of times through reading him.
I think if I have any merit as a writer it is that I can
tell a tale very directly, and leave the reader, child or adult, to do the
exciting bit, which is to interpret the words and see the pictures and hear the
sounds that I have given them directions for. You have to write about what you
care about, to be yourself and tell the story from the heart, and hope that it
resonates with them.
As a former teacher I feel quite at home in schools,
although I do find it very exhausting, but I have promised myself I am going to
do it for the two years that I am Laureate. Mind you, I am spoiling myself – as
well as
Inverness and the Scottish islands, I’m going to
France
,
Uganda
,
South Africa
,
places I have never been. This is a splendid way to combine my work with seeing
new places. Rather canny of me, I think!
Michael Morpurgo is the Children's Laureate, 2003-2005. He has written over
100 books, including Why the Whales Came, which has been made into a major
feature film, and My Friend Walter, filmed by Thames Television. His most recent
novel is Private Peaceful. He won the Children's Book Award in 2000 and the
Smarties Prize and Whitbread Children's Book Award. He recently achieved
critical acclaim for his book Out of the Ashes, a moving novel about the foot
and mouth crisis which was adapted for television. Michael visits
Scotland under
the aegis of the Children’s Laureate and the Scottish Book Trust. His public
appearance in Inverness on 11 June as part of the
Highland Festival is sold
out.
(Michael Morpurgo spoke to Kenny Mathieson)
© Kenny Mathieson, 2004
|
|
|
For download:
|
|
|
| July 2008 Editorial |
Not this time
Posted by Commissioning Editor, Kenny Mathieson, on
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:45:00 GMT |
|
Bookmark with:
What are these?