The Books that Remain with Me
Growing up, our local library was my home-from-home. I knew our librarians by name and also temperament: who to ask for a recommendation, who would kindly overlook an overdue book if you told them what you’d enjoyed about it, and who absolutely would not. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is famously the last person to have read everything ever written, but I suspect I am the last kid to have read the entire children’s section of Colinton Public Library.
I found something to like in just about all the stories that I read, and it was a rare Primary School book report that did not conclude with me heartily recommending a work to all my friends. Nonetheless, all these years later, only a handful have remained permanently with me, and they all have a single thing in common: they made me feel.
Mission Emotion
Charlotte’s Web. The Call of The Wild. Watership Down. I can still remember exactly where I read each of them, and precisely how they made me feel. And then there is perhaps my favourite book of all time: The Little Prince. Even as an adult, I still cannot read it without shedding a tear. Perhaps especially as an adult.
When it came time to write my own children’s book, I therefore knew what my mission was: it must make my readers feel. And not only my young readers, but ideally my older readers too.
Deeply Felt Experiences
Emotion, though, might be the hardest thing to do as a writer, because you cannot fake it. If you, as a writer, do not feel emotion for your characters, then the reader certainly will not. It is no coincidence that The Little Prince has its origins in the four days Antoine St-Exupery spent lost in the Sahara desert after his plane crashed, or that Watership Down draws on Richard Adams’ experiences in Operation Market Garden, one of the most brutal campaigns of World War II.
I have mercifully never been in a plane crash, nor fought in a world war, but of course, that leaves a writer like me with a problem: how do you write something that makes people feel?
The answer, I think, is something I learned while working at Pixar: that deeply felt ordinary experiences can be as universal as extraordinary ones. As with The Little Prince and Watership Down – or even Luca or Toy Story – the translation to the fictional world does not have to be literal, but the feeling beneath it needs to be real.
Rooted in Personal Emotions
And so my story, The Snowman Code, is rooted in emotions I have personally known: sadness and grief in wintertime, but also joy and happiness and the redemptive power of love.
The empathy for my protagonist draws directly from my life too: Blessing is involved in the care system, and when I was a children’s doctor, I worked with a lot of kids just like her. I always left those clinics profoundly moved by my young patients’ resilience in the face of their difficult circumstances and wanting to do whatever I could for them.
If I have done my job right, readers of all ages will leave The Snowman Code feeling the same way about Blessing, and hopefully that feeling might even stay with them.
Thank you to Simon for visiting the BooksForTopics blog this week to discuss the emotional aspects of writing for children.
Simon’s book The Snowman Code is out in paperback this week and is available to purchase from Amazon or Bookshop. An audiobook version is also available.
The Snowman Code is also a BooksForTopics Best Books for Y4 pick, as well as featuring on our Christmas booklist.
Our review panel said:
“This is a tale of love, loss and identity. It has magical sparkles of light and humour amongst the serious themes of depression and separation. The Snowman Code is a book about kindness. It may be set in the longest, coldest of winters, but it is warm and tender and would melt even the iciest of hearts. Share it and enjoy its message of love, kindness and togetherness.” Read our full review of The Snowman Code here.
Readers may also be interested in the following booklists:
- Christmas books for children in KS2 (7-11)
- Christmas books for children in EYFS & KS1 (4-7)
- 5 Recommended Christmas Storytime Books
- KS2 Reading Lists
- Recommended Booklist for Year 4
- Emotional Literacy Children’s Books
- Best Books This Month
Browse our curriculum topic booklists for more.
Where next?
> Visit our Reading for Pleasure Hub
> Browse our Topic Booklists
> View our printable year group booklists.
> See our Books of the Month.