Stories have the power to create a more hopeful world
I’m an author that spends a lot of time with my young readers and their teachers in schools and beyond. I have heard from teachers that student’s responses to the EU referendum have been deeply unsettling, both in rural and city schools. For some, their students came into school the day after the referendum with a sense of anxiety about their futures. In other schools teachers are unsure about the celebratory responses of their students and what aspects of referendum campaigning students are responding to. I imagine that in every family parents are discussing the outcome of the referendum and what it might mean for the next generation.
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These discussions have been taking place in my home and my older children are left feeling troubled and anxious about their futures. I know that this is how so many young people are feeling right now.
Whatever you think of the result, my question is how can we start to open up conversations across generations around the often heated (and sometimes hateful) language and images that have been part of the campaigning around this referendum?
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How can we as YA and children’s authors attempt to speak a language in our stories that offers young people hope and strength to face the future and explore their own political ideas and activism - to make sure that they have a genuine and informed say in the future when they finally do get to vote?
The stories myself and so many children’s and YA authors tell, come from an instinct to understand and articulate our complex world with compassion and empathy. I try to tell stories and find stories that don’t polarise. When I go into schools I also ask students about their own family stories and how they connect widely in the world. I believe in the power of stories to ignite change and to appeal to a common humanity… Malala Yousafazi’s I Am Malala (and young readers’ edition Malala: the Girl That Stood Up For Education and Changed The World) did just that.
Stories have been written and will be written by and for young people that might help to create a more hopeful world. My next book Charmed Earth (being published by Macmillan) is about an extraordinary older generation of activists and protestors igniting that passion in a younger generation who live in a world with much injustice.
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How do we write these stories? It takes a long time… and it takes moving away from a reactive position, climbing to the top of a mountain and looking at what has taken place… both in recent times and throughout history. Writing is not done in sound bites, it takes many years of allowing characters to grow before the story emerges. It is not about giving your opinion… it’s about creating a portal or a lens through which readers may view the world. We need so many different lenses.
I don’t have mountains where I live now but I do have a city wood and whenever I need to settle with turbulent times I go for a walk in my local woods with our little dog Billie – and usually come back with some kind of “settling” through which to view events. The process of “settling” is so important for authors. When you have written a draft of a book and told the story that you want to tell, it’s the space in between, when you move away from it, that you start to see what you have really written.
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Ideas of belonging, family, history, identity and finding a voice are recurring threads in my work. They are also important factors in Britain’s referendum decision. The “settling” is important in times like this when people feel very personally about the momentous decision the country has voted for to leave the European Union.
In these unsettled times I like to think of some things, some memories, some happenings, some stories that are perhaps not what we hear every day in the media. I call them my “sustaining stories.”
My father came from India to Britain in 1959 taking up the call to come to the “Motherland” to work, like so many other people who came here from ex-colonial countries. His role was to help to staff the then newly founded NHS. He met my mum, a nurse from the Lake District, while studying in Edinburgh. They married in Grassington in Yorkshire four years later, and had four children. Years later when we visited Grassington together, we met families who still remember this early mixed race marriage with fondness recollecting that local people had put up some of the unexpected guests in their homes; interesting and humorous cultural connections had come from this impromptu interaction… as they always do.
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I was born in Derby, we moved to Hull, then the Lake District, then Telford. I have lived and worked in Paris for a year and in Greece for another before settling in London where I live with my family. Through my life experience and work in community theatre and as a writer I have met so many different communities of people from all over the world. My connection to all of these people, places and their journeys have made me into the writer I am today.
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I believe in connection because it’s written in the DNA of my family and all of our families if we look beyond the surface. Many young people are angry about a decision that has been made that will affect their futures. From the conversations I have seen among on social media children’s and YA authors feel very strongly about this too.
I write stories of children, young adults and families who live in this world of connectedness across culture, religion, history and national boundaries because this is the world we experience and our children experience, it’s the world that our friends and families in the countryside and cities all over the world inhabit… a globe of connectedness.
After the Paris bombings in 2015, I called out for books that breed tolerance in these pages, and now I’m going to recommend just a few more books with human rights hearts that can help us empathise with many different people’s stories. Stories that might help us negotiate this complex world and even make us want to change it:
Alpha by Barroux Bessora (published by Barrington Stoke). This groundbreaking graphic novel isn’t out until 13 August 2016 but one to read and savour. Alpha is the heart-rending story of one young man’s journey from the Ivory Coast to France in search of his family. Pictures are by the award-winning Barroux (who gave us Line of Fire) and the stunning text is by prize-winning French novelist Bessora.
Footpath Flowers by Jon Arno Lawson and Sydney Smith
This wordless, beautifully illustrated, gentle, hopeful book has been given free to every Syrian Refugee in Canada by IBBY Canada. A little girl collects wild flowers while her distracted father pays her - and their surroundings - little attention. Each flower the little girl gathers becomes a gift for a person or animal, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter. This book is an ode to the importance of small things, small people and small gestures, Footpath Flowers is a quiet but powerful testament to the joy that children can find in ordinary things and the mutual value of giving.
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Sweet Pizza by Giancarlo Gemin
A heart-warming story about bringing a diverse community together and the amazing history of Italian immigrants in Wales. You’ll fall in love with the main character Joe, a funny and important book.
Chasing the Stars by Malorie Blackman
The author of the groundbreaking Noughts and Crosses brings us her version of Othello, set in space. But instead of race, this book is all about class; the have and the have nots. And it makes for fascinating reading.
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The Emergency Zoo by Miriam Halahmy
Inspired by real events during the second world war, Miriam Halahmy’s novel is a touching tale of courage, resourcefulness and camaraderie in desperate times, as well as a stirring defence of animal welfare.
Shine by Candy Gourlay
Rosa suffers from a rare condition that renders her mute. She lives on the strange island of Mirasol where the rain never seems to stop. In the gloom of the island, its superstitious population are haunted by all sorts of fears... they shun people who suffer from Rosa’s condition, believing them to be monsters.
Peter in Peril by Helen Bate
This moving graphic novel is published in September 2016 and well worth pre-ordering. Peter is just an ordinary boy, who loves playing football with his friends and eating cake - until war comes to his city and the whole family have to go into hiding..
Pattan’s Pumpkin by Chitra Soundar
Pattan has an amazing pumpkin... it grows BIGGER than the goats, BIGGER than the elephants, until it is as TALL as the mountains. But can Pattan’s pumpkin save his family and all the animals when the storm-clouds burst and the waters rise?
Sita Brahmachi is author of Kite Spirit, Jasmine Skies and 2011 Waterstones prize-winning Artichoke Hearts. Her latest novel Red Leaves (endorsed by Amnesty International) is set in an ancient city wood where all of the characters (whose roots stretch over the world from London, America, Scotland, to Somalia to Syria, Sri Lanka, Ireland and the Punjab) feel disenfranchised in one way or another but come together and struggle to recognise each other. She is also writer in residence (together with artist Jane Ray) at London’s Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants. Young people who want to express their thoughts on human rights might want to enter the Amnesty International Youth Awards.
Please send us your recommendations of humane books that speak to a common humanity for us all to share and be uplifted by. Ideally on Twitter @GdnChildrenBks or email childrens.books@theguardian.com
By email: Sean Edwards – Principal librarian children and youth, Wood Green Library, Haringey, London
The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon about an 11 year old child born in an Australian immigration detention centre.
By email: Pam Dix - Chair of IBBY
The Breadwinner Trilogy by Deborah Ellis (Stories from Afghanistan)
Azzi in Between by Sarah Garland and The Good Braider
by Terry Farish
By email: Gill Ward, Senior Librarian of Fortismere school recommends:
Gaye Hicyilmaz writes excellently about the refugee experience, eg. ‘The Frozen Waterfall’ and ‘Girl in Red.’ But my favourite still has to be ‘The Weight of Water’ by 2016 Carnegie Winning Sarah Crossan, a story about alienation, migration and an amazing girl.
GIRL WITH A WHITE DOG by @Bridgeanne should be compulsory reading for all people right now, but especially the young https://t.co/1UXVihMWi1
— Non Pratt (@NonPratt) June 27, 2016
Girl w/ a White Dog, Weight of Water, My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece, Bombs that Brought Us Together #tolerance https://t.co/K2lQ623tz7
— Caroline Fielding (@CazApr1) June 27, 2016
Tall Story @candygourlay giant filipino boy comes to uk. Weight of Water @SarahCrossan, polish swimmer girl in uk. https://t.co/OTswTTayQi
— Tatum Flynn (@Tatum_Flynn) June 27, 2016
The Unforgotten Coat @frankcottrell_b The Other Side of Truth - B Naidoo Weight of Water @SarahCrossan #tolerance https://t.co/9XiUZjoKuS
— Anne Thompson (@Alibrarylady) June 27, 2016
@whatSFSaid @ZanaFraillon @grgemin @GdnChildrensBks I loved The Bone Sparrow with every bit of my body. Everyone should read.
— rebecca hill (@rebeccashill) June 27, 2016
Amnesty CILIP Honour winner LIES WE TELL OURSELVES @robin_talley gives me hope, as do these kids:https://t.co/Vg1qTGpWty@GdnChildrensBks
— SF Said (@whatSFSaid) June 27, 2016
The Safest Lie by @angelacerrito - Powerful, positive and strong of heart. https://t.co/XqvpJcTafP
— Candy Gourlay (@candygourlay) June 27, 2016
More books to promote #tolerance and #empathy @GdnChildrensBks @SitaBrahmachari pic.twitter.com/6NsQUQn8Cn
— Jenny Jones (@JennySarahJones) June 28, 2016
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tullane by Kate Dicamillo - Empathy inspiring. https://t.co/XqvpJcTafP
— Candy Gourlay (@candygourlay) June 27, 2016
One of Us by @JeannieWaudby . Eye opening with a shocking twist. https://t.co/XqvpJcTafP
— Candy Gourlay (@candygourlay) June 27, 2016