Let's hear it for the kids: more literate and creative than ever

Who says today's children are being dumbed down? Who says the intelligence, literacy and creative ability is weakening compared to previous generations? (Could it be Michael Gove?)

I personally detest it when people put down children in this way. Any writer or teacher who goes out to meet kids in schools knows how smart they are. I believe that modern technology has made them far smarter than us oldies were at their age. They have a wider vocabulary and a much greater appreciation of the world, brought about by the broadened horizons made available by the Internet, games, books and a smörgåsbord of television channels. They probably also travel much more widely than we did 50 or more years ago.

All of this has had a marvellous effect. This is underlined by the results of BBC Radio 2's and the Oxford University Press' 500 words competition for children announced a few days ago, in which children had to compose an original work of fiction of 500 words.

They received a record-breaking, staggering 118,632 entries. Wow. Oxford University Press dictionary's team has analysed the stories to find out what words kids are using the most and the extent of their vocabulary, etc., all stuff that is of interest to us writers.

The most interesting thing first of all is the gender split. Girls outnumbered boys entering the competition by about 2 to 1. Three quarters of the entrants were in the 10 to 13 age range, the rest being nine and under. That probably means that girls in that age range are more likely to read books than any other children.

Now: how reassuring that the most common noun used in the stories is: 'mum'; and the most common adjective: 'good'.

Despite the fact that girls wrote twice as many of the stories, the main protagonist is more likely to be a boy. Now why do you think that is?

And the commonest name, used 27,321 times, is Jack, closely followed by Tom, Bob and James, all solid Anglo-Saxon names. I was certainly surprised to find that the most common girl's name is Lily/Lilly (17,981), closely followed by Lucy, then Emily and Sophie, also traditional English names.

And the most common historical figure? Adolf Hitler (used in 641 stories) followed by Queen Victoria (258).

I'd like to see Nigel Farage and his ilk use this as evidence for the insidious infiltration of multiculturalism into British culture. Actually it goes to show the opposite: there is no cause for concern, if anyone is concerned, that British culture is being watered down (although the research results are not accompanied by an ethnicity breakdown of the entrants to enable us to determine whether Celtic or Anglo-Saxon-originating Brits are unevenly represented amongst the entrants).

Looking at the keywords used in the stories, children were especially interested by this year's floods, with that single noun being by far the most commonly used (4008 uses), followed largely by non-real-world originating terms, coming from films and computer games: Lego, minion (used in Despicable Me), Minecraft and flappy (from the game Flappy Bird). Other words commonly used derived either from games or recent events such as the Winter Olympics.

What about new words? The research found that popular culture and social media have given rise to new verbs such as 'friended', 'Facebooked' and 'face-planted'. These will no doubt be finding their way into the next edition of OUP's children's dictionary.

Now for the really good news: children know - and are not afraid to use - really long words, including some that you or I may not even know: how about 'contumelious'? As used in the following context:

The girl springs to her feet losing all caution and apoplectic with outrage. "How dare you?" she cries, "Fighting them is bad enough, but capturing one to be slaughtered, as if it were a common boar, is contumelious. They will take their revenge and it will be terrible." (The War Party, girl, 13)

Or hands up who knows what 'furfuraceous' means? As used in:

Folkrinne's crown was placed on his furfuraceous head. The Basilisks applauded and cheered for the corrination of their new king of Malroiterre. (The Basilisk king, girl, 12)

(OK, so there was a spelling mistake in that, but I forgive this author because I think furfuraceous is a lovely word, conjuring up such a beautiful image in my mind).

And what about making up words? Children are not afraid to do this because, as you and I know, it is so much fun. My favourite made-up word quoted from the stories is 'historytestaphobia' because I absolutely used to suffer from that when I was at school. I also love 'Mucaologist', which is apparently a collector of mucus.

Finally, telling stories is not just about the words you know but the order in which you put them, and these children seriously know how to build suspense using perfectly ordinary words. As the report writers say:

If asked to write on a theme of mystery and suspense, one would not immediately think of the words door, house, step, and walk and yet the following example shows clearly how these words can be used to build suspense:
'Something had caught his eye. He turned around and saw an old, creaky house standing on its own in the middle of the woods. He took one step towards the scary house. He got closer and closer until he reached the house. Ben slowly walked up the cracked steps to reach the front door. Ben was scared out of his skin. Although on the outside he was brave. He pushed the rotten door and took a step inside the house.' (Haunted House, boy, 11)

All of this makes me happy, because it shows that there will continue to be a hungry audience for anything we writers produce, and, moreover, in a few years' time there will be more fantastically creative young adults ready to take our place.

Let's hear it for the kids.

Writers and illustrators of children's books gather in Wales!

I have started the Welsh branch of The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI). British SCBWI's website is: http://britishscbwi.jimdo.com/.

The benefits of being a member are - a fantastic membership pack stuffed with contacts, advice and invaluable help; access to crit groups, seminars, training, the conferences, daily support, a profile on the website, access to the mailing list and much more. I joined a year ago and have received huge benefits, made good friends and not regretted a moment.

There were 12 attendees, shown in the picture, clockwise from bottom left:
• David Thorpe (writer - Hybrids)
• Wendy Artiss (illustrator - unpublished)
• Mr & Anita Rowe (writer - Green Fingers & Grit, Stepsisters, A Chance to Dream, regular monthly contributor on 'writing for children' to Writers' News and Writing Magazine)
• Sophie Lording (Hay Childrens' Literature Festival organiser)
• Bethan Gwanas (editor, and writer of 20 children's books in Welsh, inc. the Blodwen Jones trilogy, and Ramboy, an English adaptation of Pen Dafad)
• Gordon Jones (librarian, editor for various Welsh publishers)
• Bear Tyler (writer, unpublished)
• Hedley England (writer - unpublished, director)
• Graham Gardner (writer - Inventing Elliot)
• Brian Lux (writer - Court of Foxes)
• Jenny Fell (illustrator - Second Thoughts, I Can Move the Sea).
In addition, 22 other people expressed interest but were unable to attend. A list of these is below.

After the introductions and a sampling of the free wine supplied by the director of the Arts Centre - for which thank you very much, we discussed the benefits of joining SCBWI, because none of the attendees were members, and how it differed from other writers' organisations.

We learnt about the National Association of Writers in Education (www.nawe.co.uk), and the American Children's Writing Resource Centre (www.write4kids.com).

Sophie Lording and Bethan Gwanas reminded those of us who had forgotten, of the existence of the Writing Squads in Wales, which will pay writers £200 a day to tutor on Saturdays promising young writers whom their teachers put forward to come to these squads, although typically the writing is done in Welsh. These are organised by Academi - see www.academi.org/squads.

Gordon Jones explained how the editors working for Welsh publishers typically combine many of her the roles of a publisher -- which can include proofreading, copy editing, art direction and marketing as well as editing! A book is considered to do well in Welsh if it sells 1200 copies. The most successful book ever published in Welsh, not a children's book, sold 10,000 copies.

We discussed how membership of a national organisation with a strong networking component like SCBWI could benefit Welsh writers from wider exposure, since they are frequently unknown outside of the principality.

Sophie Lording explained that she is looking for ideas from writers to help her work with the Hay festival. This work includes going into schools, exhibition stands and so on. The programme for this May's festival is 90% booked, but there is room for anybody who wishes to propose an exhibition. Could SCWBI have a stand there?

Academi Is the Welsh organisation which supports writers, and we decided that we if we spoke together as a group we would have a stronger voice in Academi for children's writing.

We discussed the value of Readers Days, and how we should get involved. See for example: www.readingagency.org.uk.

in terms of what we want to do in the future, the following ideas were floated: inviting Welsh editors, English editors and agents to come in from London, librarians, and illustrators agents.

Gordon Jones offered to organise a panel involving Welsh editors. I offered to continue with fund raising and coordination.

The next gathering will be a critique discussion group, on Saturday, 4 April at 1.30pm, venue to be decided.

Apologies from: Sue Moules, Jenny Fell, Brian Lux, Graham Gardner, Jane Moran, Maria Hayes, Henni Tremlett, Nicola/Paul Burgess, Derek Webb, Femke van gent, Liz Whittaker, Katrina Michael, JIm Bowen, Phil Thomas, Herbert Williams, Frances Thomas, Wynford Ellis Owen, Alan H, Dahlian Kirby , Tomos Morgan, Eleanor Burnham, Penny, Jenny Sullivan, Mererid Hopwood

We are betraying our children

The UK is bottom of a league table for child well-being across 21 industrial countries, a report by Unicef says today.

This comes as no surprise. Children are ignored, their views unlistened to, their needs unmet.

Instead children are subjected to a barrage of conflicting pressures from educational to commercial, while their parents ae encouraged to extend their teenage behaviour into middle age.

Their conceptions about their bodies are attacked by deskbound and sedentary activities on the one hand and commercially driven fashionistic images on the other.

At the same time they are given few opportunities to experience the joy of being in their bodies - through activities, physical work, play, sport - and affection.

Significantly, over half of UK children report that they can't trust their peers. This is scandalous - the worst of all the statistics. They are divided amongst themselves by the competitive nature of these pressures upon them, whether this is to be smart, dumb, aggressive or cool.

Do we ask children what they want and need and respond properly? Not nearly enough. Instead, we live in a society where the disparity in income between the poorest and richest creates envy, personal unhappiness, stress, and crime. The countries where the wealth gap is smallest have the best overall sense of wellbeing.

In short, our priorities are topsy turvy and we are betraying our children - despite all the New Labour 'interventions' and misguided 'nanny state'.

This is why I'm glad I moved out of London to this part of Wales to bring up the kids, and that they have been members of the Woodcraft Folk (misleading name, great ethos) all their lives.

It's a theme at the core of most of the books I plan to write for kids in the future because I feel so strongly about it.