Writing for childen as simple as bringing them up!

Anthony Lawton3 Comments

Ursula Le Guin book cover(Adapted from first post: April 25, 2012)

On Twitter … Nick Cook quotes fantasy and science fiction author Ursula Le Guin on writing for children: “Sure, it’s simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up!”  I was minded to find the context for the comment. It was was new to me, and Rosemary did not have children, just her appallingly untrained dogs, but I imagined she would have agreed.

Mind you, Rosemary Sutcliff did firmly resist using the word ‘kids’ for children; a kid, she used to say to me, is a young goat.

Anyway, the context is this: Le Guin wrote in an essay first published in 1979. Read More »

Rosemary Sutcliff showed children that good does overcome evil

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Rosemary Sutcliff, author of The Eagle of the Ninth, drew on a ‘large lump of unlived childhood’ as she tried to show in her children’s books that good beats evil, and satisfaction can come from doing ‘right.  Because of  Still’s Disease she missed much usual childhood activity with long bouts of illness and many lengthy hospital stays.

I was trained at art school, but then the desire to scribble came over me. I got my interest in history from my mother who had a sort of minstrel’s, rather than historian’s knowedge. Inaccurate, but full of colourful legend. I disliked history at school.

They do say that to be a successful children’s writer one has to have a large lump of unlived childhood in one. I certainly think I have that.

You have to show children that good does overcome evil, but that does not necessarily mean that the old lady you helped then paid for your ballet lessons. The satisfaction should just be coming from the fact that you have done right.

The Economist reviewed Rosemary Sutclifff’s Black Ships Before Troy | Re-telling of Homer’s Iliad

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US Edition of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Black Ships Before Troy (2005)

One of the 20th century’s great writers of historical fiction for children died in 1992 from a disabling disease that had confined her to a wheelchair for much of her working life. (Blog editor’s note: actually, she did not die from Still’s disease!). Yet Rosemary Sutcliff produced many outstanding works of fiction over a 40-year-period — most notably her cycle of novels which dealt with the Roman occupation of Britain. The last two books that she completed were children’s versions of Homer.

The first of these, Black Ships Before Troy, her version of the Iliad, is now out. Like all her books, it is an intellectually-taxing read — but it also manages to sort out some of the complicated strands of Homer’s often digressive narrative. This helps children to see the characters of the great protagonists all the more clearly.

The illustrations by Alan Lee do the book a great service. At their best, they have the confident sweep and pomp of Victorian narrative painting.

  • Source: The Economist, December 4, 1993

Rosemary Sutcliff Diary, 20 April 1988 | “Canterbury Quad, sky full of stars and a new moon to bow to…

Anthony Lawton4 Comments

(Posted again, original two years ago; comments kept)

April 20th Wednesday. Jane arrived at 10.30 and we set off. A lovely day and would have had a lovely run, but I still haven’t got rid of the car sickness after all, so felt wretched from Petersfield onward. We called for lunch with James C at the Quaker place, lovely old home, much of it 15th & 16th Cent., but myself lunched on brown bread an a cup of tea. Had a rest and then did the remaining dozen miles with no problem and felt alright from then on. Got to the G’s at tea time & watched Magdalene having her indian dance lesson (enchanting) while we had tea.

Went off (driven by Jane) to the Rawlinson dinner. This in full cherished evening dress and in my new Posh Frock, which I am not altogether happy with. Dinner by candlelight surrounded by dons and fellows with their ground down dinner jackets and their guests (mostly more dons and fellows). After the Loving Cup had been around, Tim took me for the ten minute break into the chapel around the Canterbury Quad, which was cold but lovely, with sky full of stars & a new moon to bow to, and then back to finish dessert and port for another  hour and a half, sitting in different positions and with different partners. Talked Greece most of the time with the Chaplain on my left & the Classics man on my right, both of whom were very nice to me. Oh, I mustn’t forget the scent of rain battered hyacinths of window boxes in Dolphin Quad.

© Anthony Lawton 2012

This will have been a formal dinner at an Oxford University college – note the ‘dons and fellows’. Reference to Canterbury and Dolphin Quads suggests this will have been St John’s College. According to Wikipedia, Canterbury Quad is the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford. It was completed in 1636.

Source of the name Esca in The Eagle of the Ninth

Anthony Lawton3 Comments

This is news to me, although it is probably originally in her memoir Blue Remembered Hills: the name Esca for the slave in Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth comes from Victorian novelist Whyte-Melville’s The Gladiators. Rosemary’s mother used to read her this aloud.

Image

  • Source: Talcroft, B. L. (1995). Death of the corn king: King and goddess in Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction for young adults. Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press.