Inspired ideas

Children's Bookshow Follow-up, Tuesday 23rd October, Webster Primary School

Words by Fiona MacLeod.

Darkness. A spotlight. Rows of chairs.  The  edge of a stage. Tickets. A flash of bright yellow as a volunteer goes by the door. A rustle of excitement. Manchester Literature Festival. Over 70 astonishing performances in two weeks but the best one, for me, happened on the very last day of the festival, in Webster Primary School in Greenheys, miles away from the bright lights.

A little boy finishes reciting his poem and looks up, squinting in the sunlight streaming through the windows. He doesn't know what to expect. It is his first performance. It is a beginning. He is reading a poem he has written about the holocaust and what it was like for the children who endured its horror, and he has used the opening lines, 'The water was on fire', written by Michael Rosen for the Children’s Bookshow 2012 Poetry Competition. He heard about this competition, which closed for entries this week, way back at the beginning of this year's Manchester Literature Festival, on October 2nd, when he was in the auditorium of the Royal Exchange Theatre, with the rest of his class and his teacher, Miss Dawber, to meet Ulf Stark (read Fiona's review here). 

Talking to Miss Dawber, I realised that one hour in the Royal Exchange Theatre was the culmination of weeks of reading and discussion by these children in preparation for their meeting with a real live writer. So Manchester Literature Festival started early for them. And, in the poetry they have written, its effect carries on, as through teachers like Miss Dawber and in schools like Webster Primary, all across this city, a love of literature and the pleasure of writing is made into a reachable reality for our children.

So thank you to all those people who helped Manchester Literature Festival to set up these events for young people. And thank you to all those mums and dads and aunties and big sisters and grandads who brought the kids. Who found the toilets, who lugged the buggies. And, above all, thank you to all those teachers, tirelessly counting children, watching doors, planning follow-ups and encouraging dreams. 

The little boy finishes his poem. It is his first performance. It is a beginning. We clap. 

Fiona MacLeod is a freelance writer and editor for The Jubilee Press at the University of Nottingham. Her first novel, Impostor (Wardgate Press 2008), has just been optioned for film and television. She blogs here and you can follow her on Twitter @fmmmacleod.

Ulf nation

Children's Bookshow with Ulf Stark, Tuesday 2nd October, 10.30am, Royal Exchange Theatre

Words by Fiona MacLeod. Photographs by Jon Atkin.

I am sitting in the Royal Exchange Theatre and there is a strangely familiar and comforting smell in the air. The whiff of school. Board markers, plastic lunch boxes and hot hands. The smell of a theatre full of excited primary school children who are about to see one of our most popular children's writers, Ulf Stark. Can You Whistle, Johanna?, probably his best known book in Britain, has been published in over 20 languages and remains a bestseller across the world.

My favourite Ulf Stark character is the Inappropriate Mother in Fruitloops & Dipsticks. She wore leopard print to the school PTA and I wanted to be her when I grew up. I look around - I am not the only one... some of these primary school teachers are wearing discreet touches of cool leopard print.

Ulf enters and, in a glorious fuzz of white hair, spiralling fingertips and Swedish, with his publisher translating as he speaks, he tells us that after being bullied by his big brother, he really wanted to be a boxer not a writer! But, of course, writers can get their own back in print, and Ulf explains to us how he has teased his family by including his Dad and his brother, and even his best friend, in his stories. One little boy giggles delightedly behind me.

The children all around me murmur approval of Ulf's stories about his farting brother and other outrageous family events. They appreciate his sense of the ridiculous and the unfair. Yet Ulf Stark's books are startlingly honest about the way children have to face the horror of being the new girl - or boy - in school (Fruitloops & Dipsticks) or the unexpected death of someone they love (Can You Whistle, Johanna?).

Ulf tells us the reason. The street where he grew up had an old folks' home on one side and a fragrant  bakery on the other. For him, that meant that when he looked one way there was life and pleasure and, on the other side, an early awareness of death as the schoolboys were taught to doff their caps to the funeral processions. But his writing has no room for the morbid or the sentimental. More than anything, his stories show us how much the very old and the very young can relish each other's company. Ulf reads to us the passage from Johanna, where Ulf, Bera and the elderly Ned all climb the forbidden cherry tree and sit together companionably on a branch eating stolen fruit. The  relationship between Bera and the old man Ned, whom Bera adopts as his grandfather, creates perhaps the most poignant ending of any children's book, as Bera whistles beside Ned's coffin. Again this passage is read aloud and in the semi dark of the auditorium, it feels as if the audience of children know that they have someone in Ulf who isn't afraid to explore their deepest fears.

It's question time and, at first, the audience seem shy of asking questions of a real writer. One  little girl eventually puts up her hand and soon there is an avalanche of questions from around the room. They want to know everything about being an author from 'what was your worst book?' to 'who listens to your trial runs?'.  Ulf tells us that now his children have left home, he tries his new stories out on his dog! And, if you want to know, he thinks the worst things he has written are his early poems.

The children milling around after the event have obviously enjoyed themselves. They are chatting about the 10th anniversary poetry competition announced by Sian Williams of the Children's Bookshow (click here for details of how to enter); Webster Primary School for one are planning a lot of entries. Because that is what Ulf Stark does. He doesn't just write stories, he creates new writers. He invites children to listen to their own imaginations and gives them the confidence to tell their own stories. And that is why they love him so much.

Fiona MacLeod is a freelance writer and editor for The Jubilee Press at the University of Nottingham. Her first novel, Impostor (Wardgate Press 2008), has just been optioned for film and television. She blogs here and you can follow her on Twitter @fmmmacleod.

Laugh out loud with Michael Rosen at this year’s Children’s Bookshow

21st October

Manchester Literature Festival teams up with the Children’s Bookshow, now in its eighth year, at the prestigious Royal Exchange Theatre for this morning’s lively event: a perfect location for what is to be an animated morning.

In the lavish entrance of the theatre, clusters of neon-jacketed children arrive. They form skewed lines that are hastily straightened by tense teachers. As the entrance fills up, those that are waiting are guided into the Education theatre.

“Where’s Michael Rosen?” Small voices ask, whilst they are diligently counted and then re-counted. A sense of excitement and anticipation is building.

In the circular tiered theatre, the small bodies are quickly seated. A lone microphone stands in front of a Manchester Literature Festival poster waiting for its speaker. A wooden chair and table stand to one side. The small chair will later feature in Michael Rosen’s childhood memories; at times a seat in a disciplined classroom and at others his Father’s favourite reading chair.

As the lights dim, we shush one another. The festival director steps into the spotlight and introduces Michael Rosen, “one of the UK’s best poets and former Children’s Laureate.”

An excited shuffling ensues.

Michael Rosen bounces into the centre of the room, “Let’s see who’s here.”

He circles the room and in surprise shouts, “Ah people!”

At one point he stops and points out Webster primary and St Ambrose who he had visited earlier in the week. The children wave back excitedly.

“You’re very green”, he points at a teacher.

“Are you a teacher?” He asks another audience member. “I am!” shouts a 7 year old.

“Bossy Pants”, Michael replies.

A ripple of laughter immediately follows. This sets the tone for the next hour as Michael launches into humorous anecdotes about his school days, keeping his little yet vast audience very entertained.

Michael tells us, quite simply, that he writes books; and begins to share the difficulties of coming up with the titles for his earlier books.

We are told that Mind Your Own Business, his first collection of children’s poetry, was given this title on the sole premise of winding up librarians. The children instantly take to this and laugh out loud. Naturally, he thought it would be even funnier to call the next one; Wouldn’t You Like to Know? and better still, his third book, You Tell Me.

He now moves onto the more serious subject of how he got into writing.

He tells us that he would never have written anything if he had not survived at school. Now warmed up, his lively audience follow him on his journey, enraptured.

Michael reveals that when he was at school, ‘during the stone-age’, children were not allowed to breath. Small eyes widen.

We practise holding our breaths for as long as we can, in unison. Lots of little faces turn red in their efforts.

Michael Rosen replicates the thuds of falling students, unable to live on, making it all the more urgent to know his secret for survival. Thankfully, cunning Michael Rosen had found a way around this. (They always called him Michael Rosen at school: never just Michael.)

The best way to survive at school when you were not allowed to breathe would be to use your desk lid, (“when desks had lids back in the stone age”) to discreetly breathe out into your desks and then take another gulp of air. That air should take you through the spelling test, until your next lesson, when desks could be opened again.

Magically, all tiers are silent as we breathe in, open our desk lids, breathe out together and once again, take in as much air as possible. The occasional burst of popping cheeks, followed by snorting laughter echoes in the darkness and Michael continues to ‘thud’ as more and more children fail to survive.

We now needed to master how to return the desk lid without making a sound.

“Place your fingers on the edges and slowly ease them out”, Michael says. We are in deep concentration as we try this; I find myself wincing when I hear an imaginary bang.

We are now introduced to his brother, Dr Brian Rosen, who we are told, identifies fossils. Michael shows us how this is done. He calls out, “Abdul, Dave, Melanie…”, until he gets the correct name for the rock; in this case it’s an ‘Amanite’. Immediately the audience chant; “Abdul, Dave, Melanie…”

Michael continues by amusingly sharing the day he learnt that his Mum and Dad are actually different and the day he threw his mum’s best ring out of the window; all of which are inspirations for works in his new book, The Big Book of Bad Things.

The Children’s Bookshow with Michael Rosen is a literature event, without any reading. Michael’s memories strangely fuse with our own. The stories come alive using sound and movement: all whilst sitting in our tiered seats. Its comedy built on our own lively imaginations, whatever our age, whatever our experiences. One man and his chair, keeps us happily entertained, and patiently queuing to buy more of his books.

by Shaaheda Patel

Shaaheda Patel is a teacher of English in Lancashire. She has also worked with Time to Read and Lancashire Libraries on reading development projects.