Writers Magazine 2009

Morpurgo on writing for children

A report of the keynote speech delivered at this year's Winchester Writers' Conference

‘Kids are forced to be story tellers’ explained Michael Morpurgo, opening the 29^th Winchester Writers’ conference. Children quickly learn to invent excuses, conjure explanations and make up stories to get themselves out of trouble.

So, he suggested, the role of the writer is to harvest the reality that is all around us and to weave it into new stories. This point was illustrated with tales of how he found a plot device to create a desert island castaway for the modern age. That gem was picked up from a chance encounter at a drinks party. And a dog with the unlikely name of Stella Artois can be attributed to a real canine tagged with exactly that name, encountered by Michael when its owner visited the ‘Farm for City Children’ that the author founded with his wife in Devon.

The road which led to Morpurgo’s appointment as Children’s Laureate did not get off to a good start. His primary schools in the 60s taught him to fear words. But then, like many boys of that time, he discovered that there were comic books that told all the classic stories with skilful imagery and a minimal use of words which might be challenging to their young readers. Making mental images still provides the basis for his stories, he explained.

It was his mother’s reading of adventure stories that probably rescued Morpurgo when he qualified as a teacher of English. The challenge he faced was to engage a Year 6 group and, recalling the ingredients of the tales read by his mother, Michael produced his first story. Rather like Scheherazade’s quest in One Thousand and One Nights, creating a gripping story became a matter of survival. The head teacher was so impressed that she asked for a copy of the story and the rest is a writer’s fairy tale.

With a mix of self-effacing humour and informal engagement with his audience, the author of over 90 titles concluded his talk by extolling the pleasure of writing for children who had not yet had their birthrights of wonder and honesty withdrawn. To engage with children the writer must match the mental integrity of their audience, he concluded.

‘But I don’t know why I am telling you all this, as there are already too many writers.’

© Chas Jones 2009

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