Somnopolis

The success of J. K. Rowling Harry Potter series was a starting pistol for children’s books, with literary agents searching the land for the next bestseller phenomenon. Thankfully many interesting writers have managed to ride this wave of enthusiasm. However, children’s literature has appealed to talented writers for years, with the advantage of writing for an audience whose imaginations are less troubled by having to suspend disbelief. Terry Pratchett gave a much remarked upon interview disputing that Pottermania had ushered in children’s literature. Stories told for an audience of children are nothing new. From Aesops Fables to the Brothers Grimm, Enid Blyton to Maurice Sendak – kids remain eager listeners when storytime comes round.

Author Sarah Webb has asked for recommendations of the best ten children’s books from the last ten years. I find I still enjoy reading books that the younger Me would have liked. The pleasure remains the same. In fact the older I am the more I appreciate the difficulty of writing a memorable book for children.

In no particular order:

Philip Pullman  – His Dark Materials

Michael Chabon  – Summerland

Terry Pratchett  – Nation

Lemony Snicket  – A Series of Unfortunate Events

Brian K. Vaughan  – Runaways

Philip Reeves  – Mortal Engines

Eoin Colfer  – Artemis Fowl series

S. E. Connolly  – Damsel

Jeff Smith  – Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil

Philip Pullman understands the importance of crafting a story that will live in the minds of its readers. Take his early attempts at science fiction for adults, the now out of print Galatea, and compare it to the excellent His Dark Materials trilogy. Pullman wants to use his writing to impart his view of the world and challenge received ideas of social order and the nature of religious authority. Whereas the magic realism of his adult fiction falters, the adventures of Lyra and Will, pursued by agents of the Church across two worlds, manages to illustrate concisely how adulthood can be compromised by good intentions and failure of imagination. Children in Pullman’s universe are the ultimate rebels, as they have the freedom to think differently. He is the modern standard bearer for G. K. Chesterton’s much quoted phrase - Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is possibly the best book yet written about the comic book industry, a  fictional version of events that gives a greater sense for the history of what those men stooped over flattened squares in the years following WWII endured while dreaming up new heroes for their century. Summerland is equally epic in scope, Michael Chabon’s attempt to write an American fantasy novel to rival C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Blending imagery from Norse myth with Native American mysticism, the novel is a love song to a childhood spent on the ballpark in the summer heat. Chabon is an ambitious author and Summerland a worthy experiment with the genre.

Terry Pratchett’s Nation is more of a thought experiment for children. Try to imagine how our world would be today if the role of the Church in colonial expansion was not as strong. A Robinson Crusoe without adult characters, two children from different cultures are forced to work together to survive. Like Pullman, the question is asked of the kids reading – can you imagine a better world? Try and make it so.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events achieves the rare feat of being both tragically sad and also whimsically comical. The entire series represents what may be the best modern fable for children published in years. Its collection of grotesques rival Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast and the Beaudelaire children would send the Famous Five running home crying to their mothers with bloody noses. Assuming Sunny Beaudelaire didn’t bite them off. Once again these books carry the important moral that in the adult world, there is no one to rely on but oneself, but there can be relief courtesy of love and friendship along the way, while it lasts.

Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan may be an unusual inclusion. For one it’s an American comic book. Also the original creative team of writer Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona have since moved on.  Nevertheless for its original run of 24 issues, Runaways (following the adventures of a group of children who discover their parents are supervillains and, well, go on the run) achieved the seemingly impossible in American comics. It became a classic, original comic book series. Recommended for readers young and old.

Philip Reeves won the Guardian book award for the first entry in his Mortal Engines series of books for children and it is easy to see why.  A dystopian tale with the marvelous hook that in the future cities are mobile and only the larger, ‘hungrier’, metropolises survive. The writing is dark and imaginative and the main characters are forced to grow up too soon.

Eoin Colfer has taken a lot of stick recently for writing a sequel to Douglas Adams’ Hitch-Hiker’s Guide. I feel the Wexford native was on a hiding to nowhere from the day the news broke. He was forced to compete with a dead man who still can claim a fanatical fan base and who know when they are being exploited. Better to stick to his own literary universe, the artful world of Artemis Fowl, scourge of the Fairy Folk who are surprisingly technologically advanced. A Celtic Tiger-cub who would give Irish bankers a run for their money, he wheels and deals his way through two worlds, bamboozling humans and Fairies with his intelligence and conniving. Fantastic fun.

Susan Connolly’s Damsel is the fairy tale every child should have already heard. The story of a young girl whose hero father goes missing on a quest, she ventures forth to rescue him aided only by his guidebook to heroism. Witty, imaginative and deserving of a much wider audience.

Jeff Smith’s Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil is a two-fold treat. An introduction to the greatest superhero of all for younger readers who missed him first, second and third times round; and a homage to the wonderful work of its creator C. C. Beck. When Billy Batson speaks the magic word Shazam aloud he is transformed into the hero Captain Marvel. Smith’s art references the style of Beck, while also containing some modern day satirical digs, including the villain’s resemblance to a certain member of the Bush Administration.

I find I don’t have a tenth recommendation, so instead I will mention books I am looking forward to reading, such as Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels, as well as Dave McKean’s illustrated collaboration with Richard Dawkins on evolutionary science for kids. Now I just need to write a story of my own.

I’ve become everything I’ve always hated!

This morning I wandered into Easons on O’Connell Street to buy my morning paper. On my way to the till, dodging the face of Jordan/Katie Price and her latest outburst, I noticed a stand located at the front of the shop.

‘Childrens Book of the Month’, read the poster. Below was a low shelf with several books including Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim. I have noticed that there is currently a publicity drive on to promote this excellent book. You’re as likely to find stacks of the first volume sitting beside other heavily promoted titles, such as SMeyer’s The Host. This is obviously due to Edgar Wright’s forthcoming film. Indeed months ago popbitch ran a notice encouraging its readers to get on the Scott Pilgrim bus before the picture opened. Before I left Sydney I gave my collection of the trades to Stephanie’s sister as a gift for much the same reason. I enjoy the dry humour, the computer game in-jokes, the visual gags. I think Knives is too cute.

So why did I approach the teller and insist that Scott Pilgrim is not a children’s book and would be more appropriate for the ‘Young Adult’ section?

Am I becoming more conservative? Perhaps. Maybe I don’t think a story featuring characters getting drunk and falling into bed together is suitable for children.

I often recommend the work of Philip Pullman to parents, because he writes honestly for children. Death is not sugar-coated. Love is portrayed as something natural, without restriction. Lying is a survival trait. Pullman is writing for children, consciously seeking to reverse the hypocritical mixed messages that are often sewn into the work of other writers. I caught the film of Prince Caspian on the weekend, which depicts the child heroes leading an army into battle against odiously racially coded villains, with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy stabbing and decapitating without hesitation. Yet this is a beloved children’s classic? Lyra and Will in His Dark Materials do commit murder, but they also have sex, which is apparently far worse than any amount of Johnny Foreigner slaughter by the Pevenseys.

Like Pullman, Bryan Lee O’Malley features positive portrayals of homosexuality in his writing. Scott Pilgrim is a love-letter to early 90’s counter culture, grunge music, video games and apathy. The art is cute, a variation on anime’s style and perhaps the staff at Easons were convinced it was a children’s book, because it seemed ‘cartoony’. Yet despite all that I don’t believe Lee O’Malley is writing for kids, or that Scott Pilgrim should be read by them. I suspect much of it would fly over their heads. It’s ironic that I defend a comic book as being adult fare, while in a previous post I featured a quote declaiming Harry Potter as infantilizing. To me, there’s a distinct difference between the two. Bryan Lee O’Malley has written a comic with adult themes that superficially resembles children’s fare, but should ideally be read by adolescents and upwards. Harry Potter is a children’s book that adults indulge in out of a sense of nostalgia.

I’m sorry Bryan!

Mr. Martin’s latest book in the ‘Song of Fire and Ice’, series, ‘A Feast of Crows’, is apparently now available. This is a cause for celebration. Not because the book industry needs another bargain basement Tolkien. It doesn’t. No that title is owned by Robert Jordan.

Jordan’s an interesting comparison, as for some reason his name is soon spoken almost in an echo to Martin’s. The ‘Song of Fire and Ice’, is widely viewed as almost a corrective to the bombast filled ‘Wheel of Time’, series, which fittingly enough feels like it has been going on for ever. There are many parody sites easily googled that mock the endless desciptions of china cups and women pulling on their braids snorting ‘Men!’ Martin by contrast devotes individual chapters to particular characters’ POVs. There is a mildly heady realism throughout, lent a certain degree of substance by the fact that the ‘protagonist’, through whose eyes you are peering will frequently die a death. No character is doused in pristine white or langourous black – everyone is in some way sympathetic, which is a great achievement for the writing which far outstrips the simplistic fantasy worlds that have wormed their way to the surface post Lord of the Rings/Narnia.

I have not read a book by Martin in two years. ‘Fevre Dream’, is a self-contained ‘vampires on steamboats’, story that neatly mates Mark Twain with Anne Rice. Our author friend was also apparently a script-writer on the fondly remembered ‘Beauty and the Beast’, television show in the eighties with Linda Hamilton. I remember staying up late to watch that show on ITV when I was seven or eight. It also had Ron ‘Hellboy’ Perlman playing the Beast. Anyway.

I have not read a book by the man in two years and the series itself has been ticking along for some time now, with no immediate end in sight. I can barely remember most of the characters’ names, which is vitally important, as various warring families dominate the plot’s progression and you have to be able to remember who is loyal to who. The Lannisters are ostensibly the main villains, with incestuous siblings and an aristocratic bearing that blinds them to the poverty within their city. The Starks by contrast resemble the Clan Atreides from Frank Herbert’s Dune, in more ways than one. Tragedy strikes the family when they are commanded to leave their home by the king (as did the emperor in Dune). Now Jon Snow, the Stark’s bastard has been exiled to the Wall, where there are strange supernatural stirrings, hinted at from the first chapter of the very first book. The realm itself is torn up in civil conflict between forces loyal to the Lannisters, Starks and other families. And far off to the West the sole remaining Targaryn (sic?) has raised an army that is slowly progressing towards the homeland (seemingly we’ll discover the fate of Danaes (sic?) come the next book).

Obviously I cannot do the story justice, but the political skullduggery and brutal battle scenes really elevate the series above the pack. In many ways Martin is heading up the rear behind other ‘fantasy’, authors such as Susannah Clarke and Philip Pullman who are pulling the fantasy genre kicking and screaming out of its self-imposed and marketed ghetto. These books have literary merit that stands up to analysis.

Now to get my grubby hands on the latest entry in the series…