First up ... instead of posting a photo for the kids enjoying the workshop, I can only post this:
If I had taken a photo of the class, I would have had to get the signatures of 15 parents granting permission to post the photo on the net. Hence, the generic photo from Dollar Photo Club instead.
Secondly, the workshop involved 15 children walking into the library, up two flights of stairs, and into a room where they sat around a table for two hours. This required the librarian organising the workshop to write a SIX PAGE Safety Hazard management Plan. SERIOUSLY! When did OSH take over the world, and when did they go mad?
It was interesting that when I asked the kids what their favourite books were, the first to speak said "Enid Blyton - The Famous Five", and all the other kids agreed they loved those books. The Magic Faraway Tree was mentioned next, followed by Nancy Drew. J.K. Rowling - eat your heart out. It’s great that the old classics are still loved, despite what the naysayers think.
The kids were gobsmacked when I told them that at the time the Famous Five books were written, what the kids did was entirely possible. That is, the kids and Timmy could get into a boat and row over to George’s Island for a camping trip with NO PARENTAL SUPERVISION. Or they could hire a gypsy caravan and go off on a trip for a week with NO PARENTAL SUPERVISION. And no cell phone contact.
I could see a few of them still doubting, so told them that during the summer holidays when I was their age (10) my brother (8), my sister (4) and I would leave the house at 9am with a packed lunch, and come home at 6pm in time for dinner. We would spend the entire day playing Pirates or Cowboys and Indians or Space Travellers down the steep banks that led to Edgecumbe Park. On weekends we would go to Turners & Growers, where The Warehouse is today.
Turners & Growers was a wholesale fruit and vege auction house (closed weekends), with vast pathways of beautiful smooth concrete on the outside of the building that just screamed to be skated on. Not only that, but the packing pallets were all stacked in the yard, with no pesky fences or barbed wire to content with. We spent hours climbing on those things. And you know what? NO ONE EVER DIED!
Today it takes a six page Hazard management Plan to allow kids to sit at a desk for two hours. As one of the kids in the workshop said, “It must have been so cool to be a kid then … you had so much freedom.” It was, and we did, and it saddens me that the only way today’s kids can have any idea of the sense of freedom and responsibility kids once had is through the pages of books written 50 to 60 years ago. It also, I believe, explains why many of today’s kids are so addicted to video games. It’s the only way they can play adult-supervision free, make their own mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and grow as human beings.
On a different note, but still out of the same workshop, was something for children’s and YA authors to consider. When I was picked up by a distribution company to get my novels into retail stores (something that eventually fell through because of the cost) they said I would have to change the cover. A librarian rated my first novel one star on Goodreads pretty much based on how awful she thought the cover was. So, I redid the cover and produced a much cleaner and simpler one (shown on the right).
The kids preferred the one on the left! So, there’s a dilemma for authors that I have no answer for: while you want to have a book cover that appeals to kids, you have to actually produce a book cover that appeals to adults instead, as they are usually the ones holding the purse strings. But then, the kids won’t want to read it. This dichotomy between kids and adults is also, I believe, why so many great novels had so many rejections before being published (Harry Potter 9 rejections, Dr Seuss 24, A Wrinkle in Time 26, The Princess Diaries 17). Traditionally publishing houses STILL have 50 year old men in suits smoking cigars (well, maybe not the cigars anymore) deciding what kids want to read. Why not ask the kids?
FACEBOOK COMMENT: I did post a comment on your blog but it isn't showing up. Here are my thoughts. I couldn't agree with you more. I write children's picture books, teach dance to children and do many things involving young children. When my 94yr old mother in law was visiting at the start of the year I phoned three local kindys and asked if they would like me to bring her along to meet the children. The little children were fascinated by her, one little boy kept tickling her baggy bits under her chin. I told him that when you get as old as Nana H your brain is overflowing with things so you keep the overflow in the bag under your chin. Like you we were not allowed to take photos. I thought it would be good advertising for the kindy. Another thing that happened; I have written a series of books called 'Dance a Poem' I sell them at local market. Twice I've had said to me by well meaning adults that they wouldn't buy the one called 'The Angry Giant and the good Fairy' because of the word 'angry' one teacher from Canada informed me they didn't allow children to hear negative words and are now not even reading certain classic fairy tales to young children. I ask you!!
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