Connect with the child in you, aspiring writers told

Connect with the child in you, aspiring writers told Staff Reporter / 5 May 2013 Aspiring children’s writers should explore the myriad feelings of childhood and draw from them, said Guy Parker-Rees, known for his best-selling picture book titled Giraffes Can’t Dance. He was talking in a discussion titled ‘Challenges of Writing for Children’, moderated by Fatima Abdulla, at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, where varying viewpoints were shared on the topic by participants. Parker-Rees and Nick Toczek spoke about their experience as writers and educators from the Western world, while Amal Attalah provided the Arab perspective. “Connect with the child in you – that’s the secret of writing for children,” said Parker-Rees. He started with a story to demonstrate his points of view. The challenge, he said, was the key to making a story interesting. Interesting characters that the child wants to reach out to, art that conveys warmth, and quirkiness are factors that he touched upon. “Challenge expectations and look at things in a new way,” he concluded, “because, with challenges come opportunities.” Attalah, a Jordanian writer and educator, was of the opinion that though the scene of children’s literature in Arabic has changed a lot for the better from what it was fifty years ago, it requires a lot of work still, in terms of both quality and quantity. She also questioned the policy of classifying the books written for children over twelve years as ‘young adult books’ rather than ‘children’s books’. “A child remains a child at least up to the age of fifteen,” she emphasised. In her opinion, children’s books should provide factual information about the society that he is a part of. It should  be written by people who have mastery over the language, with due consideration given to the short attention span of an average child. Toczek, a U.K.-based author, poet, magician, journalist and educator said that providing a child with good language is empowering him for the world. “Encourage children to speak for  themselves,” he said, adding, “it’s the personality of the writer that shines through the words and makes the language work.” He advised aspiring writers to look for ideas in three places — their surroundings, their memory and their imagination — because all that they need are stored there in their past, present and future. He was of the opinion that children, with their innate honesty, provide the best feedback to an author’s writing. “Children teach me to be a good writer,” he concluded. Discussions on various children-related topics at the Book and Literature Forums have been an integral part of the daily events of the 12-day Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival which concluded on Saturday. news@khaleejtimes.com Taylor Scott International