Talking Books

This text features a collection of interviews with some contemporary children’s writers. Authors such as Neil Ardley, Ian Beck, Helen Cresswell, Gillian Cross, Terry Deary, Berlie Doherty, Brian Moses, Alan Durant, Philip Pullman, Celia Rees, Norman Silver, Jacqueline Wilson and Benjamin Zephaniah talk about the joys and challenges, rewards and demands of the craft, creativity and process of writing for children. By discussing issues such as how the authors approach their writing on a daily basis, how they view the writing process, and how they perceive their visits to schools, this book will enable teachers to gain new ideas on ways to work with these authors’ writings in relation to the literacy hour. After a general introduction, each monologue is divided into individual sections, in which the writer talks about: their reading habits as children and adults; how they came to be published; how they approach their writing on a daily basis; how they view the writing process; the evolution of their titles – either books or poems; how they perceive their visits to schools, and finally, in a “specialist subject” section, the authors explore an issue of interest related to their work.