Leicestershire – The Children's Literature Podcast

73 – Interview with Rachel Greaves

Subscribe: RSS

Rachel Greaves is my Leicestershire Children’s Writer for the month of May. She was kind enough to come to my home for a chat about her books, her creative designs for puppets, and future plans for Ruffle the Rail Dog, the lovable, adventurous pup who stars in her books. You can find Rachel’s books at ruffletheraildog.co.uk.

Rachel made Eric, the puppet on the right, entirely out of recycled or repurposed materials, resulting in a cute, lightweight, but sturdy character to feature in live performances of her stories.

Eric’s body is made from an empty four pint milk jug and his hands are carved wooden spoons. The hands are especially clever as the long handles allow the puppet’s arms to be easily manipulated without children seeing how during shows. This makes the puppet more believable and draws in the audience. Rachel also makes excellent use of Ruffle when she performs with him, making sure that he’s always moving around in a natural way.

Please do check out the adventures of Ruffle the Rail Dog! He’s a charming little guy with a lot of adventures that your kids can join in.

71 – Sue Townsend

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Sue Townsend is Leicestershire’s most beloved author. While she primarily wrote for adults, she has been a major influence on other local children’s writers and her first three novels about the angsty, acne-plagued Adrian Mole remain beloved by teens and adults alike after 40 years in print. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, and The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole provide a spectacular view of the messy life of a teenager growing up in Britain in the 80’s.

The novels about Adrian Mole’s teen years are a good lesson in the history and politics of this period, offering a chance for kids to understand the different points of view on the issue of government assistance and social programs for those farther down the economic ladder. They also provide a great opportunity to spark conversations about how teenagers should deal with the increasingly adult problems they will have in their lives, sometimes sooner than they would wish.

Activity: Who Should Help Adrian?

Adrian Mole is a disadvantaged teenager. His parents have a volatile relationship, and for a while his mother moves away. Both parents have short-term relationships wiht other people, creating an even more unstable home environment for Adrian. Both parents smoke and drink heavily and depend on government handouts to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Issues such as welfare benefits, socialized health care, and who deserves help from society can quickly become abstract or even contentious, but teens can begin exploring these ideas in an age-appropriate way by keeping the focus on Adrian and his life. Students can explore the following questions in a classroom conversation or in an essay.

When parents fail to take care of their kids properly, what is the point at which help should be offered by outside groups such as churches, schools, or social workers?
Adrian had his first hangover at age 14. What public health information can you find out about the dangers of heavy drinking at such a young age? What do you think is a good way to talk to teenagers about the risks that come from drinking alcohol?
Adrian’s father loses his job and becomes too depressed to look for work, instead sleeping late and watching television during the day and depending upon government benefits to pay the bills. Without welfare payments to Mr. Mole, Adrian will not have enough to eat or a home to live in. Do you feel Mr. Mole should continue to receive money from the government?
If disadvantaged children do not receive help to ensure that they have homes, food, healthcare, and an education, it is more likely that they will work in lower-paying jobs, have poorer health, and be more likely to engage in criminal behavior. What are ways that disadvantaged children can be helped? How should the costs of such help be paid for? Who should decide what help a child’s family should receive?

67 – Interview with Tom Phillips

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

March’s Leicestershire Children’s Writer is Tom Phillips, also known as Tom the Tale Teller. He’s the author of Leicestershire Folk Tales for Children, a collection of local stories from the spooky and fantastic to the sad but true.

In our conversation, we talk about the importance of keeping in-person storytelling alive. It’s more important than ever in a world full of digital distractions. Tom explains how he selected the stories for his book, how he dealt with the problem of multiple versions of a story, and how he managed to simplify the very complicated tales of Lady Jane Grey and Richard III. We also mention two places that have inspired storytelling for each of us — Bradgate Park here in Leicestershire and Sycamore Canyon in Los Angeles.

You can find Tom the Tale Teller online. Give him a follow to see videos of past storytelling and find out where you can see him in person!

Check out my previous features of Leicestershire Children’s Writers. Each month this year I’ll be featuring an author from my community!

January: Poonam Mistry
February: Jonathan Emmett

58 – Interview with Jonathan Emmett

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Jonathan Emmett is February’s Leicestershire Author of the month! I really enjoyed our interview, in which we talk about his fun childhood spent using tools, his training as an architect, and how he blended his interests in problem-solving, design, and storytelling during his successful career as a children’s author.

Each month this year I will be featuring authors who are from Leicestershire or who live here, as my way of using the show and its growing audience to support writers in my local community. If this interview is any indicator of things to come, I’m going to have a lot of fun over the coming months speaking with really interesting people!

Jonathan grew up in Enderby, a village just on the southwestern outskirts of Leicester City. The librarian in Enderby fortunately had an eye for American authors like Maurice Sendak, P.D. Eastman, and Dr. Seuss, all of whom were a big influence on Jonathan as a child. His parents encouraged him not just to read, but to play with real tools, building and designing things from a young age. As he trained to become an architect, he learned that Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs were really useful in designing pop-up books, something he still does today.

This interview gives a glimpse into an interesting career, with sound advice for prospective authors and fun reflections on the importance of allowing just the slightest bit of danger into childhood.

You can learn more about Jonathan Emmett and the books he’s written at jonathanemmett.com. Follow him on Twitter at JonathanEmmett, Facebook at JonathanEmmettAuthor, and Instagram at jonathanemmett. He also has a YouTube channel and a Pinterest page.

Activity: Make A Pop-Up!

Jonathan Emmett doesn’t just write books — he designs them! His background as an architect helps him come up with clever designs for books that pop up into three dimensional pictures. Check out his page on how to make your own pop-up pages.

53 – The Midnight Panther

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The Midnight Panther is a lovely book by Poonam Mistry, an author local to where I live in Leicestershire in England. Her images are inspired by her Indian roots, drawing on Hinduism and Indian textiles and interpreting them with a modern abstract sensibility. Many people assume that illustrated books are just for little ones, but this is one story that has quite a lot to offer to older children.

Like so many pre-teens and teenagers, the Panther in this tale feels badly about himself because he doesn’t look like the Tiger, Lion, or Leopard, who seem more glamorous. Panther tries to superficially imitate the other cats in the rainforest, but Nature itself tells him three times that he doesn’t need to pretend to be someone he isn’t. At last, Panther realizes that he is lovely in his natural form, and that it’s best to embrace himself for who he is rather than to hate himself for who he isn’t.

This story has a lot to offer pre-teens and teenagers who are bombarded by superficial and unsatisfying images they find online, showing airbrushed people living airbrushed lives. Attempts to disguise the true self or to imitate someone else will never provide long term happiness. True satisfaction comes from accepting your natural self, and then making the most of who you are.

Learn more about Poonam Mistry and her beautiful artwork at poonam-mistry.com.

I have not been paid to endorse this book; I chose it for the podcast because I really think it’s something special and would like to support a new author who lives in my area. You can purchase a copy of The Midnight Panther at one of these links:

Activity: Accepting Yourself for Who You Are

After reading The Midnight Panther, encourage students to have a conversation about how each of us needs to accept and even love ourselves for who we are rather than trying to superficially modify our appearances to imitate someone we could never be. Where appropriate, discuss the ways that social media and online communities attempt to convince children that their natural selves are not good enough and need to be altered. Be sure to discuss the fact that it’s normal to experiment with fashion and fads, as this is part of finding a personal sense of style. But it’s very important that these choices are used to express one’s true self, not disguise it.