“Storylines” visits Martinborough School

Paul Beavis illustrates how to draw Ms Mo’s Monster.

With digital technology often displacing the enjoyment of reading, the impact of groups such as Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust play a vital role in encouraging children to want to read books and write their own stories. 

As part of their annual National Story Tours, “Storylines” recently came to visit the Wairarapa schools. Four talented artists and writers came to talk to the children about the work they do, to inspire a love of reading and writing. 

Paul Beavis, an illustrator who has worked in children’ s animation making cartoons for BBC and Channel 4 engaged the children with Mrs Mo’s Monster. Mrs Mo’s Monster is a character from one of Paul’s books. There were no murmurs from the children of “I can’t draw.” Each armed with an A4 sheet of paper and a pencil they created their own monster. Breaking the design down in to simple concepts of the shapes of a sock, a potato, the letters p, q, u and w, every child was totally involved. Very credible monsters appeared. There were lots of smiles on the children’s faces as they shared the finished results.

Meanwhile, Pamela Morrow, a writer and visual effects artist for film and television, was exciting another class discussing “future” writing for youth fiction. Pamela’s talk explored an emerging way to approach the future, using the ideas underpinning ‘protopian’ stories: today is better than yesterday, and if you make great choices today, tomorrow can be better than today.”

Sarah Ell, is passionate about the environment and the history of New Zealand. In one of her earlier fiction books “When the War Came Home” she wrote about the flu epidemic in New Zealand after World War 1 – a situation where there are some comparisons with our experiences of Covid. In “Lost Wonders” she focuses on the many New Zealand species which have either become extinct or are at risk. 

James Norcliffe, teacher, writer, and editor of poetry and fiction, concentrated on fantasy writing. “What if,” was his theme. “What if you could fly?” “What would be good about that?” What could be bad? If you wanted to hold the tooth fairy to ransom, what might happen?

And then another poser. “What is the real reason?” Using the example of a small door under a bandstand he asked the children “What is the door for? Does it contain the gardener’s tools? Or do tiny band players live and practise there?” 

Where would we be without books? 

Lyle Griffiths