If I’m in a really good reading mood I like a long chapter book or if I’m tired I like cartoons
If I’m in a really good reading mood I like a long chapter book, or if I’m tired I like cartoons.When I was little, my auntie got me the Richard Scarry books and Where’s Wally? I like fiddly things with lots of detailed pictures When I was a bit younger, she read us Tin-Tin. But she goes in and sees all these people and then he kills her as well.NOAH: I like reading the Brian Jacques Redwall stories, and Tin-Tin, and factual books about animals and snakes and spiders. I’ve been reading Smith by Leon Garfield, as well, and The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Then he gets a new wife and he gives her all the keys except the one to that room.
It’s about a little girl who’s really ill and her legs are all cotton wool-ish The doctor says she has to skate to get them strong. She’s poor, but she meets this rich girl, Lala, at the rink who wants to be a champion My mum’s reading that to us at the moment When we go to Ali’s to stay she reads to us She’s read a lot of fairy tales to me The best one was Bluebeard, who had loads of wives He kills them all and puts them in a room. So the next day he gets all his furniture and sticks it upside down on the ceiling, and the mice think it’s the floor so they all go upside-down, then the blood flows to their heads and they all die.When Ali, my auntie, was a little girl she had White Boots and she gave it to me and my brother. So he buys mousetraps and puts them on the ceiling, and all the mice start laughing at him. Now it’s the more ludicrous aspects that appeal to them, such as the Thompson Twins. The stories work at lots of levels.ELLA: I’m reading The Upside Down Mice by Roald Dahl at the moment It’s about this old man who has mice in his house.
They appreciate that approach.Some books seem to grow up with them. Even when they were very little we read Tin-Tin together, doing all the different voices Then it was just a story about a boy and his dog. Not just “this is what happens to children”, but “this is how children see the world”. This happened when we read The Railway Children, and now they’re going through all the Noel Streatfeild books and noticing my name in childish writing in the front Little Women they liked very much, and Mary Poppins It was the child’s perspective that appealed to them. I’ve given them books about why school’s a nightmare, which probably their parents wouldn’t.You try to offer different, modern things, but secretly you’re gratified when they like the books you liked.
The great thing about being an aunt is that you can encourage them in a certain amount of naughtiness and subversion. From early on they loved madcap things such as Dr Seuss, Willy the Wimp, The Queen’s Knickers and, of course, Roald Dahl. They have crazes on favourite authors and they’ll say, “Auntie Al, can you find out when the next book by so-and-so is coming out?” As I’m in magazines, they expect me to know about everything that’s in print.Books have changed since I was their age There’s much more humour now. When they come to stay in the holidays I read to them, and if I haven’t seen them for a while they ring up and tell me what they’re reading. They go to Sabben Country Primary School in Lancashire.ALISON: I’m a rather far-flung auntie, but I seem to have taken on the role of book-provider. Jo Williams, vice-chair of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups, will represent the views of children who will read the 20 short-listed stories.To start you off, we have asked some children and their grown-ups what stories they enjoy reading together.WENDY BERLINERAlison Pylkkannen, editor of She magazine Her niece, Ella, is eight and her nephew, Noah, is 10.