Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist when death rates were high and people often lost loved ones to illness, including children or parents. Those days are thankfully over—except, it seems, in children’s books. Why do we still write so many stories about orphans?
More than just colourful clothes – did you know the science of dye-making has given us miracle cures and deadly weapons, too?
Humans have hundreds of ways to predict the future and keep inventing more. Is it just for fun, or does it reflect something deeper?
Here you’ll find posts about the history and ideas that have inspired my books, as well as short essays on children’s literature and even the occasional interview or book review. Scroll down to browse or click on a tag to explore a topic.
In essence, the magic of Christmas and the magic of children’s stories are about the same thing – a conceptualisation of the child as the keeper of innocence and enchantment in a modern, secular world.
In a climate change-affected dystopian setting, recognisable as the author’s home of New Zealand although not explicitly named, Snow is a young teenage girl whose stepmother wants her dead. To this end, she tasks a hunter with taking Snow into the forest near their mountain chateau, killing her and bringing back her heart as proof. […]
Jessica Miller’s second novel, The Republic of Birds, is a meticulously written, profoundly feminist story of exile and power. It takes place against a landscape conjured out of Russian folklore and nineteenth and early twentieth century history, and draws its storybook magic from the tropes of middle grade fantasy even as it vigorously interrogates them. […]
When it comes to promoting their books, children’s authors need a different set of skills to their adult author counterparts, and nowhere was this more apparent than at the opening weekend of Adelaide Writers’ Week 2020. Children’s authors, long shut out of core writers’ festival business, have increasingly been infiltrating Adelaide Writers’ Week. 2012 saw […]
How the blockbuster changed children’s and YA publishing If you are an adult writing fiction for publication now, there’s a good chance you forged your literary dreams in a time when the publishing landscape looked different to the way it looks today. Whether you’ve caught up or not with the new paradigm may be the […]
Caroline Magerl knows a lot about adventure. This October she is on a mini-adventure of sorts, working in Adelaide as a May Gibbs Fellow and anticipating the November release of Nop, her third picture book as writer-illustrator. It’s part of a literary and fine arts career that has taken the Queensland-based artist to London, New […]
CATHERINE NORTON