| Children's column: Anne Fine, happy endings, and press agendas |
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| Children's |
| Written by Nicolette Jones |
| Friday, 28 August 2009 09:48 |
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Let’s just get something straight about Anne Fine’s much-debated remark that there is too much gritty realism in modern children’s books. She didn’t say it. Some of her words were accurately quoted, but this was not the point she was making. Anyone reading the original Times story would have heard alarm bells ring when we were told this was said at a platform event in Edinburgh. So it was not a piece Fine wrote herself. And it was taken out of context. Then there is the evidence of her own books, which she might be expected to know. She has written, to cite a few, about a family Christmas at which everyone cracks and tells each other what they actually think of each other, in The More the Merrier; a brutal story of how totalitarianism can corrupt the innocent in The Road of Bones; a story of how a damaged child can get beyond help in The Tulip Touch; tales of both the unhappy and the hopeful side of step-parenting in Step by Wicked Step; as well as explorations (if ultimately optimistic) of divorce and abandonment in Madame Doubtfire and Flour Babies. Even her humorous books for younger readers can have a spikiness that does not mollycoddle the reader – think of the rude Russian boy in Ivan the Terrible or the feminist edge in Bill’s New Frock. Elsewhere (on the subject of Doing It, or of Tender Morsels, for example), Fine has argued that there are limits to the acceptable content for children’s books. But it seems unlikely that she would come down on the side of 1950s morality. Sure enough, as Fine put it herself on Anne Cassidy’s blog: “I was not advocating any particular sort of endings. That is a headline invented by the Times Subs to make a news story. And I am a bit surprised that, given the endings of a couple of my own books, notably The Road of Bones and The Tulip Touch, anyone would assume I had advocated anything so horribly simplistic.” Fine was asking an audience of social workers and teachers who dealt with vulnerable children if bleak endings had any effect on the youngsters they knew. The inaccuracy of the original report was pointed out on Keren David’s blog and Melvin Burgess’s among others. But the debate that ensued was in some ways illuminating. It was a chance to point out in print that writers some would call gritty, such as Jacqueline Wilson and Melvin Burgess, are often, in their different ways, the hopeful ones. That happy endings still exist in modern children’s books, and reassurance of all kinds, as well as dark, or open, conclusions. That, as pointed out by Alison Flood on her Guardian blog, unhappy endings are nothing new in children’s stories. That teenagers can cope with - and often prefer - books that deal with harsh and unhappy subjects (hence their taste for Skins and misery memoirs). And that working through bleak realities is part of the point of literature. What should come as no surprise to anyone is the fact newspapers grasp at sensational angles. Whether this should be so, and the way it affects the news, is material for a different - and long - debate. But publicists take note: this is what newspapers want. If you aim to get a book covered on news pages, find a controversial assertion. And be warned: subtle arguments don’t fit into headlines.
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Comments (2)
  written by Anne Fine, August 28, 2009
Though I quite understand how the misunderstanding arose, I'd really like it on record that I have no problems at all with the novel Tender Morsels. Once I'd read it, I thought it a stunning piece of work, and consider that any young person capable of reading it must be mature enough to deal with the content. Once again, my general remarks to a journalist about issues in children's reading ended up conflated with an observation I also made about the website I'd just seen on line, and an entirely false impression of my view was created. It wasn't claimed that I had read the book, but everyone assumed I had. So I am buttoning my beak from this day on.
written by Anne Fine, August 28, 2009
Though I quite understand how the misunderstanding arose, I in fact don't have any problems with the novel Tender Morsels. I consider it a stunning piece of work, and think any young person capable of getting through it could not be harmed by its content. Once again, a general conversation with a journalist about issues in children's books ended up conflated with an observation I made about the website for the book which I had not yet read, and an entirely wrong impression was created. From now on I shall be firmly buttoning my beak!
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