AS IN THE LONG AGO

Looking through some old writing I came across this short piece from 1994. I'd been working part-time for a while, and trying to turn myself into a writer. I'd just started the novel which became my first book, TROUBLEMAKERS, and my wife, Ellie, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Then the headteacher of the school where I was working asked me to take on a new Reception class for two terms, and I said yes. When I saw it just now, I realised that this piece of writing catches something important about the way I felt about my job and the way I approached it.  Here it is. RECEPTION CLASS 1994 It starts slowly. There are fifteen children in the morning, Another fifteen children in the afternoon. We look after them, Give them good things to do, Crack jokes, read stories, Learn their names. One at a time, We put the balls into the air. By the end of the week, Thirty balls spinning, flying. We weave a pattern with our hands and minds To keep ...

This piece was first published over on ABBA five years ago, in September 2014. I'm going to repost all my posts from that blog on here over the next few weeks but this was the first one I wrote, as a guest post. It would be nice to think that everything had changed for the better since I wrote it, but a read of this 2019 report from the Book Trust shows there has been more talk than action.  September 2014 I have seen various reports recently about the lack of diversity in children’s literature: from Savita Kalhan on this blog, and elsewhere from Malorie Blackman and Bali Rai.  This is about what happened to me. My grandson is seven months old and the other day my daughter, Emily, asked me if I’d like to buy him his first book.  ‘Yes!’ I thought, ‘That will be fun.  Maybe I’ll get a board book copy of THE BABY’S CATALOGUE.’  It was my son’s first book too.  He’s a few years younger than Emily and it hadn’t b...