Prize: There are three fine contenders on the shortlist for the Children's Books Ireland Bisto Book of the Year award, to be announced on Thursday, writes Eileen Battersby, Literary Correspondent
Try telling a story, any story, and the toughest audience to satisfy will be a child. Children listen and reason, and the smallest detail is noted, as is the slack link. If a false note is sounded, the younger listener will detect it. We all have this innate clarity, but we lose it as we mature. It is as if our imaginations are dulled, we become self-conscious and our ability to grasp the totality of a narrative somehow flounders.
This may explain why writing for children is so complicated. It also explains why Kate Thompson is so impressive: she understands both the seriousness and the privilege of writing for children. If the teller is tested by the audience, the reader, that same reader is expecting to be entertained.
Alongside entertainment is the need to teach and inform. From the time of the Greek legendary figure, Aesop, until now, story has always contained an element of message. That degree of polemic ranges from subtle to blatant.
As society has relinquished its innocence, and what were the horrific exceptions - drugs, alcohol abuse, racism, ugly domestic tensions and violence - have become routine realities, a literature pitched at the older child has emerged. This teen fiction falls between narratives written for children and novels written for adults. It is an uneasy category, drawing on traditional coming-of-age themes now crossed with darker realities, and its presence is reflected even in this year's Bisto Book of the Year shortlist.
The shortlist is marked by an element of the usual suspects - can any children's literary prize now fail to contain Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl stories? Colfer is shortlisted again, as is last year's overall Bisto winner, the ever excellent Kate Thompson, an inspired storyteller of unusual vision and artistry.
Also shortlisted again are Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, with an extraordinary picture-book, and Colmán Ó Raghallaigh, whose version of the Diarmaid and Grainne tale, is illustrated by another of last year's category winners, The Cartoon Saloon.
Some of these books are very good, the Thompson and Fitzpatrick offerings are outstanding, as is Matthew Sweeney's Fox - but why are several of the others so ordinary and, in some cases, so contrived? Also, this is a list that offers only one book for younger children, albeit the superb You, Me and the Big Blue Sea .
This year's Bisto contenders concentrate too much on the older child to adolescent; even An Tóraíocht (Cló Mhaigh Éo), with its dramatically alluring graphics, is written in a rather formal Irish best suited to readers aged at least 12 years or older. While the emergence of teen fiction, with its emphasis on developing sexuality, is overshadowing children's fiction, it is satisfying to see Ó Raghallaigh looking towards the rich storehouse of Irish myths and legends. Yet for all the appeal of this famous Irish romance, and indeed considering the somewhat Jim Fitzpatrick-like style of the graphics, this sophisticated cartoon version is hardly a children's book.
Gerard Whelan's War Children (O'Brien Press) is a solid collection of six workmanlike short stories. Whelan is a down-to-earth traditional writer and he has drawn on Irish history and the experiences of ordinary people during wartime situations. He makes his points about behaviour, and the consequences of actions:
You should always tell your Mam where you're going. One time when I was young I didn't do that, and because of it a lot of people died. It destroyed our lives entirely. And it was only an ordinary day, and I was only trying to help.
A quietly sensible intelligence born of experience and lessons learnt, dictates the tone, I like the way Whelan does not try to win his reader, he simply tells a story in plain language
To be honest, one of the more irritating books on this shortlist is Artemis Fowl: the Arctic Incident (Puffin). Happily for Eoin Colfer, scores of readers, indeed the world at large, clearly feel otherwise. But I have yet to be won over by Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer's super- villain. Fast-moving high-tech yarns with lots of smart asides (such as "the Arctic Station had never been high on the fairy tourist list. Sure, icebergs and polar bears were pretty, but nothing was worth saturating your lungs with irradiated air for") either delight or alienate. Colfer's racy, hard-bitten style either thrills or leaves one cold - and I have yet to warm up.
Our massively misunderstood wayward genius Artemis is still trying to save his dad, and of course the whole thing is building up to a series - but its slick knowingness still does not appeal to me. Not even Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit could sustain my interest this time. But, but, but . . . adventure stories are usually readable and always popular, and Colfer is as sure of his material as he is of his readers, who range from nine years upwards. Give me Harry Potter any day.
Far more appealing than Colfer's world view and one of the genuine delights of this list is Matthew Sweeney's Fox (Bloomsbury). The magic of this story is that Sweeney succeeds in exploring difficult subjects such as loneliness, a child's awareness of his parents and their self- preoccupation (which tends to isolate him), and of what living with failure - as does James Black, the owner of the fox - is like. At no time does the narrative, which also looks at the reality of homelessness, become a well-intentioned polemic. It is a charming, rather sad and very human book. It also looks far more convincingly at the difficulties of growing up and being accepted into the greater world than does Malachy Doyle's Who Is Jesse Flood? (Bloomsbury).
All the subtle grace and candour of Fox degenerates into brash, in-your-face contrivance in Who Is Jesse Flood? While Fox triumphs on its narrative voice, and Gerard is no saint, Who Is Jesse Flood? fails on the same grounds. Although not having read Doyle's previous book, Georgie, which was well-reviewed, I expected something from this book. Instead, it is predictable, crude, gives the impression of being carelessly tossed off, and is very much the stuff of any number of those television shows that are broadcast in the late afternoons for a slightly older children's audience.
One of the problems with teen fiction is that it inhabits a terrifying no-man's-land between childhood and adulthood, and it appears that dangerously often writers working within this area veer towards the adult - particularly as society and the stuff of the daily newspapers have made adult crimes part of childhood. Perhaps other parents driving children to school have also had to stop listening to the morning radio news for fear of more sex cases being reported.
This constant merging of adult and child makes things too easy for writers who are merely pitching weak adult fiction into the teen market. Doyle's quasi-literary prose is a bit too breezy, offhand and adult, as in: "It's weird, this business of living. This business of being a teenager." Elsewhere the consistently unconvincing Jesse intones: "Small town blues. Small town Saturday blues. Lying in bed as long as you possibly can. Lying in the fug of sleep, nightsweat and yesterday's dirty socks. Putting off the evil moment when you have to open the curtains and face the boring boredom of another small town day."
Who exactly is Malachy Doyle writing for and why has this been Bisto shortlisted?
The biggest disappointment for me was that Siobhán Parkinson's The Love Bean (O'Brien Press), a book I had been looking forward to, proved far slighter than anticipated. At times it verges on the silly. While Parkinson does possess a lightness of touch and there is some good dialogue, I found the entire concept of the book, with its parallel stories, forced and contrived. Twin sisters fall victim to the same good-looking idiot - so what? As the story begins, one ofthe girls, Julia, is mourning the collapse of her romance with Jonathan, who is now displaying interest in the more sensible Lydia.
Far more important is the fact that their father may be a racist, or at least as racist as many non-racists tend to be once people from another culture move in next door. Running parallel with the daily story of the sisters is a book about two sisters in ancient times who are also rivals in love. Julia is attracted to Tito, a young black boy who moves in next door. Details of his tragic past filter through as their romance begins. The conclusion, complete with both sisters paired off with their respective boyfriends, is simplistic in the extreme. This is a novel that began well (-ish) only to taper off into banality. Again it highlights the awkwardness of attempting to write within the politically correct formula of the teen market. Particularly irritating was the use of quotations from Romeo and Juliet - this little tale can claim nothing of the pain and frustration of the play.
Grace Wells is less trendy than Parkinson in her approach. Gyrfalcon (O'Brien Press) is the story of young Gyr and his little sister, Poppy, both living in Ireland with Mom while Dad ties up his business in England. It is immediately obvious exactly what is going on here. This is a worthy, if dull book. Perhaps the title leads one to expect a wonderful tale about a bird of prey, something along the lines of Kes. But Wells handles her narrative about an angry, hurt young boy with a diffidence that never succeeds in rising to the unconvincing fantasy elements she includes as part of Gyr's imaginative escape from his problems.
Author of The Beguilers, an extraordinary philosophical and metaphysical performance, Kate Thompson is a storyteller of genius. The Alchemist's Apprentice (Red Fox) is about as compelling as a novel can be. Young Jack has been battered by life at every step he takes. Immense statements about human existence, our hopes, our dreams, our reality are expressed throughout, yet Thompson is never didactic. Set in England in 1720, it is a picaresque drama possessing atmosphere, believable characters, dramatic incidents and fascinating variations of the European fairy story. The horse sequences are particularly well done.
Last year's Bisto shortlist presented a treasure - The Beguilers. This time, I knew to expect wonders from Thompson and was brilliantly rewarded. Here is the book to read and proof that classic children's literature is still being written - by Kate Thompson.
Last but far from least is Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick's gorgeously witty picture-book, You, Me and the Big Blue Sea (Gullane). Mother recalls a trip by boat, "but you were only a baby, you wouldn't remember". This refrain is repeated throughout as she describes a sea trip like no other. She calmly describes the various episodes, while the illustrations depict disasters. It all culminates in the sinking of the ship, a boat aptly called Colander.
Hugely original and stylish, this is a wonderful anarchic performance. This Bisto shortlist has gathered together three of the finest recent children's books, ranging from this wonderful picture-book to the appeal of Fox and the serious storytelling genius of The Alchemist's Apprentice.