Books don’t have to be hard work for teenagers. Author Charlie Higson shares some tips with us.
Although it’s good keeping up the habit of reading together with 5- to 10-year olds, there does come a point where personal space is more valuable to your child than sharing a story at bedtime! However, that doesn’t mean you have to give up all hope of your kids ever reading a book again…
Charlie Higson is probably best known as a comedian and writer for shows like ‘The Fast Show’ and working with Reeves and Mortimer, but he has also written several books for young readers. His Young Bond series was a huge success as the official account of James Bond in his school days and didn’t shy away from gritty language and action. He has just published his latest novel, a teen zombie thriller called The Enemy through Puffin books. Here he shares some of his experience with teen fiction as a writer and a dad…
What do you think of reading matter for teens? Do you think they are well served beyond what they are expected to read for school?
I think we are in something of a golden age for children’s literature. And, for boys in particular, I think there has been a big shift in publishing in the last four or five years kicked off by Anthony Horowitz and Darren Shan, and for older teenagers writers like Melvin Burgess and Kevin Brooks, who really understand modern teenagers.
Finding the right book for teenagers is very tricky because their reading age, interests and sophistication can vary so wildly. It’s not unusual for a teenager to be reading an adult writer like Nick Hornby one day and then retreating to the comfort and security of a well-loved children’s book the next.
With Young Bond you gave the stories a bit of an edge. Did you consciously set yourself limits on how far you could push the story in terms of suitability for young readers, or do you think a writer needs to have an instinct for what young teenagers can read?
The Ian Fleming Estate who commissioned me to write the Young Bond books had told me that they wanted them to have a darker edge, which was one of the reasons they chose me to write them, because after all Ian Fleming’s books are pretty edgy. When I set out to write Silverfin, I’d never written for children before and didn’t know what the rules were for violence, gore and mayhem.
In the very early days, I had some difficulties with Puffin but I had to say that it was a James Bond story and that even a 10-year-old coming to the book would have certain expectations of what a Young Bond story should be. I have three boys of my own and I aimed the books fairly and squarely at them. I know the type of computer games they like to play and films they like to watch and I knew that the books would have to deliver on the same level. If other boys out there are anything like my own, they demand high levels of gore and a high body count.
Your new series The Enemy is even darker reading matter for young people. Was this a deliberate choice?
I wanted to write a horror story and horror stories by their nature are very dark. Having done the thriller genre with Young Bond, I wanted to try a new genre. In the end though, I think the message of The Enemy is quite positive. It’s about kids working together and looking after each other and there is a happy ending of sorts.
Would you say your experience of writing fiction for younger readers – plot, voices, characters, tone – is shaped by your own memory of what you enjoyed reading as a teen or by what you see your own children and their friends enjoying?
I always set out to write the types of book that I like to read, so I’m trying to write books for my 12-year-old self.
Do you have any tips you’d like to share – as a reader or as a parent – for encouraging teenagers to read?
• It’s absolutely fatal to keep shoving a book at a kid who has already decided they are not interested in it. The number of times my kids’ granny has tried to foist Swallows and Amazons on them...
• The main thing is to try and impress on your children that reading is fun. Talk to them about what books they have enjoyed and why. For instance, I have recently discovered that my 14-year-old who is dyslexic only really likes to read books written in the first person.
• Leave books lying around, maybe create a bookshelf of books that they might like, with as much variety as possible, and leave them to choose books for themselves.
• In the end, don’t get too stressed out if they don’t appear to be reading anything. Teenagers have lots of other important things to be getting on with in their lives. Statistics seem to show that a lot of boys come back to reading in their 20s.
Useful links
There are a couple of really useful websites for teen books.
• Spine Breakers has news and reviews about books written by teenagers. They also feature upcoming events and competitions.
• Cool Reads features reviews of books written by 10- to 15-year-olds.