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Forget the idea that there was ever a golden age when children reached for books ahead of any other form of entertainment or distraction: it didn’t exist, says Andy Griffiths, one of Australia’s most successful children’s authors, best-known for the Treehouse series.
“I grew up in the 1970s, we didn’t have computers or online, television [offerings were] few and far between, but we had bikes and all the freedom in the world,” says the punk rocker-turned-teacher-turned-novelist. “I always tell the kids it’s not an either-or, it’s both; all mediums have their strengths.”
Children’s book author Andy Griffiths is working with the State Library on the Big Book Bash.Credit: Jason South
Griffiths will speak to about 55,000 children on Wednesday about the joy of story-telling this week, as part of the State Library of Victoria’s Book Bash, an online event live-streamed to about 1000 primary schools across the state. On Thursday, author of When We Say Black Lives Matter and Fashionista Maxine Beneba Clarke will also run an online poetry workshop for students.
Designed by the library to inspire creativity, the Book Bash targets students in years three to six, whose literacy skills were most affected by lockdowns. “I go in and I tell them stories and I entertain them and I make them laugh, and the effect of that is usually to send them to the books afterwards because there’s plenty more where that came from,” says Griffiths.
Reading should be about fun, first and foremost, says Griffiths.Credit: Jason South
The idea is to make the kids laugh, to provoke them, tease them, he says. “I’ll bring out toys – Godzillas, babies, pink carrots, whatever it takes to grab their attention. I’ll gently explain that they can use everyday objects around them and enjoy their own playful creativity. That’s my brief.”
Embracing the digital space is one of the silver linings of the pandemic, Griffiths says, that broader reach allowing access for students who would never otherwise have had the opportunity to hear from their favourite authors. Via Zoom, he can reach much larger audiences than would be possible physically. It’s a long way from the first Book Bash at the State Library, held in early 2020, about a week before the first lockdown, when on a rainy day, about 100-150 kids came into to see him speak.
Encouraging kids to read goes hand in hand with cultivating an interest in them telling stories of their own, according to Griffiths. “Often that’s the effect, if I get up and talk about how I can tell a story, the kids go, ‘I can do that!’”
Children tell each other stories all day at school, he says, but even so, when asked to write something, many go blank. He suggests they write something to a friend to get a rise out of them. “It doesn’t have to be a noble ambition. A lot of my early writing in the classroom was to annoy. I’d write outlandish, ridiculous stuff and they’d get cross with me – that’s mad, it makes no sense.”
The names of his early books underline the point: Just Tricking, Just Annoying, Just Stupid; all of which went on to become bestsellers, just quietly.
This year marks the last of he and illustrator Terry Denton’s wildly successful Treehouse series: to be published in September, the 13th book will be the final instalment. “What Terry and I are doing is playing with words and pictures and ideas, and they pick up on that play, ‘Oh yeah, not everything has to have a function, you can enjoy a word or an image just because’. That’s how I encourage them to see it, it’s another form of messing around and being silly in the best sense of that word.”
”If you are reading for entertainment, you are building a really positive relationship with words, and you are mastering words and reading, which you can then take into any other area of your life, or any other subject because reading and literacy underlie everything.“
“Books have that ability to engage you in a one-on-one mind meld with the author and the illustrator where you are creating the book together, it’s a really collaborative endeavour,” he says. “The reward is a really personal, vivid engagement.”
The State Library’s education team is focussing on engagement in literacy/reading and how it affects achievement. Deliberately scheduled for the end of term, the Book Bash also aims to give overworked teachers a break. Griffiths himself knows that feeling, having started as a secondary school teacher.
“When I started writing in the late 80s, I was an English teacher and there wasn’t a lot of funny, pure storytelling around, it had all gotten a bit safe and well-meaning and kids really were turning away to see Jurassic Park and play computer games where there were no limits and no rules, and that was my aim as a writer. Bringing what I loved about writing from the 70s and making it relevant to them – by saying all bets are off, anything goes.”
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.
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