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Editor's Corner July 2009 Want to know what excites an RHCB editor? Tune in to the Editor’s Corner each month to get the inside scoop on a different editor’s latest and greatest project, from tomorrow’s bestseller to a literary masterpiece!
Since its
inception I have always known that I want the David Fickling Books
imprint to be first and foremost a 'story house' and I have
pursued that aim throughout my editorial career in an entirely pragmatic
and straightforward fashion. I felt I knew what I meant by
'story' , a very broad and capacious idea in my head, and that was
good enough for me. Lately, since 'story' has become a more
fashionable word the concept has begun to seem rather vague
to me, and I have been trying to work out what I really meant
by the word and what it means in terms of our publishing decisions
for children. I found myself writing this. Well, at least it's a
start. Teaching
my Grandmother Sometimes
we forget why we learn to read. Learning to read is not easy for
most of us. As a child there seem to be so many better things we
could be doing with our time. It is one of the first pieces of hard
intellectual discipline we undertake. Not surprising then that young
children, teachers, parents and librarians often see learning to
read itself as the goal. But it isn't. The true goal is to
get to the stories. The stories are the brain food that every
child needs, every human being needs. But
can't we just get stories from TV or films? Of course
we can but the reading process calls for the mind to be active and
to build and imagine concepts in our own heads. Films and
TV do a lot of the work for us and we are forced to accept the view
of the film-maker. The writing process calls for great care in the
construction of stories. By reading well-made stories children
can think more deeply and imagine for themselves. They will learn
more. But
surely stories are not real? They are just things we read when we
are young, fairy tales and such? Stories
are neither true nor untrue. It is for the listener or reader to
decide for themselves on the truth of things. That's the magic of
them! They get our minds working. And this is exactly why
they are so important. Stories make us think. In fact, they are
very much how we human beings learn to think. . . But
come on, fantasy stories just aren't true. We don't want to fill
our children's minds with fantasy. They need reality. Albert Einstein
once conducted a thought experiment in which he imagined himself
as travelling on a light beam. That wasn't true either, in fact
it was a total fantasy, but it enabled him to think more clearly
and uncover deeper truths. Some of the truths he uncovered were
counter-intuitive and contradict common sense. Fantasy
or mythical stories often enable us to explore human (or non-human)
situations in ways we couldn't in real life. They may not be strictly
real but we can learn some very deep truths. But
science does not contain stories? It does. Non-fiction is story just as much as Fiction. Scientific
theories are just stories of a special defined kind, with particularly
strict rules of logic and verifiability. These theories, say
if you do this, then this will happen. Theories can be true
or false. Just like stories. And they can be sometimes true and
sometimes false too, just like stories. You might define a theory
as a provable (or disprovable) story. What
are the best stories for children? Good stories
have a good structure, a good pattern to them. In fact a story isn't
a story at all unless it has a pattern, a string of unrelated facts
or details just won't do. As we grow older we can deal with more
complex patterns and absorb more contradictory truths. We are learning,
and we are learning that the truth may not be clear-cut. But to
start with children are served well with clear, robust story patterns.
This is why fairy tales are good. Their structures are usually time-tested
and very satisfying to the young reader. So
just how important are stories? There is not a single value, moral, or ethic that has ever been written down or spoken, that has not given by story. Everything we record about "right" and "wrong" is recorded in a story. Stories teach us how to relate to each other. From humble gossip to world-changing religions to the whole human record of past events, all is transmitted by story or narrative. Our most deeply held values are contained in stories. People without stories are people without freedom. Other people can tell them what is right and wrong. They are reliant on others to tell them what to think. Reading
many different stories gives the child the power to think for themselves,
to make your own mind up. You can't get much more important
than that. Children need the best stories we can give them.
The more people that are thinking clearly, the better for all of
us.
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