Exploring the IBBY Honour List

Seven Stories is the national home of children’s books in the UK, and a member of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). This Spring, the IBBY Honour List Collection came to Seven Stories – and students and staff from Newcastle University’s School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics had the chance to explore it, too!

IBBY describes the Honour List as ‘a biennial selection of outstanding, recently published books, honouring writers, illustrators and translator from IBBY member countries.’ IBBY sections from around the world recommend books for the Writing, Illustration and Translation Honour List categories.

Collections of the Honour List books are then circulated around the world, travelling between institutions, conferences and book fairs, which fulfils IBBY’s objective to ‘encourage international understanding through children’s literature’. And this year, Seven Stories were lucky enough to recently host the IBBY Honour List for Illustration!

Books from the IBBY Honour Collection. Image: Newcastle University
Books from the IBBY Honour Collection. Image: Newcastle University

Having such an amazing international collection in Newcastle also seemed like a great opportunity for Newcastle University’s Children’s Literature Unit, so I got in touch with colleagues there and organised opportunities for staff and students to explore the Honour List.

First, I took the collection up to the University to the Children’s Literature Unit Graduate Group. We spent around an hour looking at the different items and discussing which books we were particularly drawn to. Professor Kim Reynolds, who led the session, said: ‘I loved the way many of the authors and illustrators play with the idea of the book as an art form and the variety of shapes and ways of understanding “the book” they exhibited.’ MLitt student Jennifer Shelley said: ‘What really stuck me as a whole were the similarities (e.g. common themes such as empowered children) but also the differences: some books looked quite traditional and even old-fashioned, possibly because publishing of children’s books is at different stages in different countries.’

Staff and students from the Children's Literature Unit Graduate Group discuss the IBBY Honour collection. Image: Newcastle University
Staff and students from the Children’s Literature Unit Graduate Group discuss the IBBY Honour collection. Image: Newcastle University

The same afternoon, Dr Helen Limon and the MA in Creative Writing students visited Seven Stories and explored the IBBY Honour List as part of their seminar. With this group, there was a lot of discussion about the different stories the books were telling. Student Caitlin Kendall said: ‘I thought the collection was really fascinating in that it seemed to highlight some universal themes for children such as belonging, identity, recognition and philosophy whilst at the same time highlighting some profound cultural differences in what is appropriate in literature for children in terms of narrative, illustration and message.’

MA in Creative Writing students exploring the IBBY Honour Collection. Image: Newcastle University
MA in Creative Writing students exploring the IBBY Honour Collection. Image: Newcastle University

I had two opportunities to explore the collection – my favourite item? So difficult to choose, but I particularly loved Zullo and Albertine’s Mon Tout Petit (La Joie De Lire), nominated by Switzerland. And with these charming illustrations, it’s not difficult to see why…

Germano Zullo and Albertine's Mon Tout Petit, published by La Joie De Lire.
Germano Zullo and Albertine’s Mon Tout Petit, published by La Joie De Lire.

Discovering home, heritage and history at Seven Stories

In this guest post, Dr Lucy Pearson, Lecturer in Children’s Literature at Newcastle University’s School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics and Gavin Hetherington, a BA English Literature with Creative Writing student, reflect on the third year students’ visit to Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books in October.

Dr Lucy Pearson

My third-year module ‘Home, Heritage, History’ asks students to think about these three themes in the children’s books of the twentieth century, and to think about how English Literature might use archives and museums. This module evolved from my close working relationship with Seven Stories – I’m taking full advantage of having a heritage organisation devoted exclusively to children’s literature right on our doorstep! One of the highlights of my teaching year is the module field trip to Seven Stories, and this year’s trip was extra special.

The team at Seven Stories stayed on after hours to give my students exclusive access to the Seven Stories Visitor Centre in the Ouseburn Valley. The Collections Team brought along some archive material for students to have a closer look at: we explored some of Helen Craig’s original artwork for Angelina Ballerina, looked at some of Robert Westall’s correspondence and his manuscript drafts of The Machine Gunners, and investigated the creation of Tom’s Midnight Garden and The Borrowers through correspondence, artwork, and drafts. Mary Norton’s letter to her illustrator Diana Stanley in which she writes about the horror of the blank page when starting a new work struck a chord with us all! It’s a special feeling to handle the original material and see authors’ false starts, crossings out and uncertainties.

Dr Jessica Medhurst gave the students a guided tour. Image: Newcastle University
Dr Jessica Medhurst gave the students a guided tour. Image: Newcastle University

Students also had a chance to explore the galleries and think about how Seven Stories shares our heritage of children’s literature with the public. This was especially exciting this year because our KTP Research Associate Jessica Medhurst came along to give students a tour of Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories and talk about the ideas behind the exhibition. Jessica has been working closely with the Seven Stories exhibitions team and conducting research to support their development of the exhibition, so she knows everything there is to know about the Morpurgo exhibition. The exhibition theme of storytelling was especially interesting to members of the group who are also creative writers: student Gavin Hetherington gives his account below.

In the Rhyme Around the World exhibition, Storycatcher Lawrence gave students a taste of the experience regular visitors to Seven Stories can enjoy – and they had some fun exploring the interactive aspects of the exhibition!

Interacting with the exhibitions. Image: Newcastle University

We finished the evening with a quiz, where students showed an expert knowledge of children’s books (and a healthy competitive streak!)

If you’re envious of the students’ exclusive access to Seven Stories, it’s not too late to sign up for our Being Human event on 24th November, which will offer all the fun the students enjoyed plus a little bit more.

Gavin Hetherington

As a creative writer, visiting Seven Stories was not only educational, but also inspirational. The biggest part of this children’s literature archive is that they have acquired original materials from iconic authors in order to preserve and protect them from being shipped elsewhere. In doing so, this material is available to be admired, ensuring that visitors can always walk away with something from the experience.

Students exploring the Michael Morpurgo exhibition. Image: Newcastle University
Students exploring the Michael Morpurgo exhibition. Image: Newcastle University

To go from Michael Morpurgo’s ‘Dreamtime’ in his exhibition, to the ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ – a short walk away – shows how deeply connected every part of his writing process is, from his creative ideas whilst walking through the pastoral, to the illustrators that have collaborated on his work, boasting watercolour paintings that reflect some part of his stories. We are submerged in his mind and are able to interact with the pieces that make up his imagination, and it spills over into the visitors’ reality. Morpurgo himself, in a very cosy setting of a shed and a recording of the famed author speaking directly to us, said that we should ‘fill our heads with this world of which you are a part’ and that, for us creative writers, it is not ‘magic’ that conjured the words we seek to write, but ourselves, as we write the story we truly believe in, from our minds to the paper before us.

I could not help but be fascinated as Morpurgo himself comes to life, as do the other writers who have created such timeless children’s stories, with the manuscript of The Borrowers and the facsimile of Tom’s Midnight Garden. These personal objects reveal the process of their writing, that the finished product we all cherish began in a way that the creative writer can relate, and thus helps us to aspire to be like them. The exhibits in Seven Stories humanises the writers, shows us the processes of their hard work and how they each used their own modes of magic to bring their stories to life.

A first year and a first blog post

We’re now officially one year into our funding for the Vital North Partnership between Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University. I thought this blog would be a good way to review what’s gone on over the past year…

The Vital North Partnership begins

The start of 2015 saw Newcastle University’s REF Impact Case Study about the Children’s Literature Unit’s work with Seven Stories receive a 4* grading, leading to the School of English ranking first in the UK for research impact.

This was fantastic recognition of our collaboration over the last 10 years, and led Seven Stories (with Newcastle University’s support) to make a Museum Resilience Fund bid to Arts Council England. This was for the Vital North Partnership, a project with the following aims:

  • To strengthen and scale-up Seven Stories’ partnership with Newcastle University
  • To build Seven Stories’ brand recognition and reach and develop new income streams
  • To secure a sustainable business model for Seven Stories as the national home for children’s books

We were delighted to be awarded funding, and the Vital North Partnership began…

From 2015 to 2016

It’s been a busy first year. Here are some of the highlights!

  • We were granted funding from AHRC and Innovate UK for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the School of English Literature, Language and Lingusitics and Seven Stories’ Collections and Exhibitions team.
  • We recruited a Vital North Partnership Manager (me!) to facilitate the project. I started in post in January 2016.
  • Seven Stories’ exclusive Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories exhibition opened, supported by the KTP. The Vital North Partnership also supported a sell-out Christmas concert with Michael at St. Nicholas’ Cathedral, On Angel Wings.
  • We offered 4 joint public talks on children’s literature with expert Brian Alderson, and author Garth Nix.
  • Seven Stories’ Living Books project is ongoing: this is a development programme for early years settings and parents to share and enjoy books with young children. Newcastle University’s Centre for Learning and Teaching are helping to evaluate this project.
Living Books workshop
Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books
Journey to Jo'burg performance
Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books
  • Seven Stories and Newcastle University hosted Leverhulme Visiting Professor Karen Sands O’Connor from Buffalo State University. Karen spent her time here looking at race and diversity in the Seven Stories collection.
  • We jointly offered four David Almond Fellowships to support postgraduates and early career researchers to come and consult the Seven Stories collection.
  • Newcastle University students from the BA in English Literature and BA in Education visited Seven Stories as part of their course, and I gave a seminar on Seven Stories and reading for pleasure for the Educational Psychology doctoral trainees
  • Seven Stories have also been supporting student employability by offering placements: we’ve supported an undergraduate Research Scholarship with Speech and Language Sciences  and we’re currently hosting a Santander University Internship.

Phew!

What’s next?

Now I’ve been in post for 8 months, things are really gathering pace. There are lots of projects in the pipeline and I’m planning to share activities as they happen via this blog. If you’d like more information about anything you’ve read about here, get in touch!

Between now and Christmas, I’ll be posting about opportunities through the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership, sharing a Pecha Kucha I gave at the AHRC Common Ground event earlier in the summer about the Vital North Partnership and quizzing Research Associate Dr. Jessica Medhurst about all things KTP.

So a first year, and a first blog post. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year has in store…