We have an interview with Quentin Blake, the person behind those much loved illustrations.
The Children's Book Room constitutes a complete shop within a shop. We can mount an awesome school book fair without apparently diminishing the stock. Hearing the pounding of both tiny and leaden feet up the stairs is one of our rewards. We stock both the highly-promoted junk your parents will forcibly encourage you to read and the brilliant books you can choose yourself.
We have all the old favorites and many new authors. If you have not looked at the picture books, aimed at early readers, do so. The standard is extremely high with many beautiful illustrations to delight the eye.
For the adult collector there are usually a few of the sought-after titles passing through our hands.
Yes - We are Uncle supporters! We are trying to build up an Uncle 'database' and welcome any information. The books we know of are:
What is slightly unusual, perhaps, is that more fans of Quentin Blake are not demanding the reprinting of these books with his fantastic illustrations running across the pages. Nevertheless, welcome to a club that is not as small as we once imagined. Tony Bannister has some excellent examples of the illustrations at his very graphical website - and explains "Who is Uncle?" rather well...
His Dark Materials was described as the 'most ambitious work since Lord of the Rings, as intellectually thrilling as it is magnificent' in The New Statesman in 1997, and The Amber Spyglass is set to receive similarly raptuous reviews. Philip Pullman was born in Norwich in 1946, the son of an RAF serviceman. He read English at Oxford and later taught courses on the Victorian novel and on the folk tale, but he eventually left teaching in order to write full-time. Here he describes his work.
Did you have the whole story in your head when you began writing His Dark Materials?
Yes, in outline, though not in detail. I haven't got enough RAM in my head to deal with 1300 pages of as yet-unwritten material. But any writer of stories has to have a certain architectural sense - I mean a feeling for large shapes, and an instinct for whether they'll stand up safely, or need lots of propping up to make them steady, or whether they'll just fall down whatever you do, and so on. And of course when you begin a large project like His Dark Materials, you make sure beforehand that the large shape is secure.
Did you write His Dark Materials as 'fantasy'?
No. I think of it as stark realism. The trouble with pigeon-holing books by genre is that once they have a particular label attached, they only attract readers who like the sort of book that has that sort of label. Fantasy is particularly affected by this. I very much want to reach readers who don't normally read fantasy - I want to reach readers who know very well that they don't like fantasy at all. I don't like fantasy. The only thing about fantasy that interested me when I was writing this was the freedom to invent imagery such as the dæmon; but that was only interesting because I could use it to say something truthful and realistic about human nature. If it was just picturesque or ornamental, I wouldn't be interested.
How did you come up with the idea of dæmons?
When I first saw Lyra in my mind's eye, there was someone or something close by, which I realised was an important part of her. When I wrote the first four words of Northern Lights - 'Lyra and her dæmon' - the relationship suddenly sprang into focus. One very important thing is that children's dæmons can change shape, whereas they gradually lose the power to change during adolescence, and adults' dæmons have one fixed animal shape which they keep for the rest of their lives. The dæmon, and especially the way it grows and develops with its person, expresses a truth about human nature which it would have been hard to show so vividly otherwise.
Why do you believe stories are so important?
Because they entertain and they teach; they help us both enjoy life and endure it. After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.
What stance do the books take?
Underlying the trilogy there is a myth of creation and rebellion, of development and strife, and so on. I don't make this myth explicit anywhere, but it was important for me to have it clear in my mind. It depicts a struggle: the old forces of control and ritual and authority, the forces which have been embodied throughout human history in such phenomena as the Inquisition, the witch-trials, the burning of heretics, and which are still strong today in the regions of the world where religious zealots of any faith have power, are on one side; and the forces that fight against them have as their guiding principle an idea which is summed up in the words The Republic of Heaven. It's the Kingdom against the Republic. And everything follows from that. So, for instance, the book depicts the Temptation and Fall not as the source of all woe and misery, as in traditional Christian teaching, but as the beginning of true human freedom - something to be celebrated, not lamented. And the Tempter is not an evil being like Satan, prompted by malice and envy, but a figure who might stand for Wisdom.
The myth has allowed me to link together many aspects of the story in a sort of invisible way which might not be apparent to the reader, but which I have found helpful. For example, it explains where dæmons come from, and what happens when we die, and why there are many universes.
And if certain Christian critics are confused by this, and imagine I'm denying the difference between good and evil, then all I can say is that I shall pray for them.
Where and when do you write?
I write in my shed, at the bottom of the garden. It's quite comfortable in there, but because of my superstition about not tidying it during the course of a book, it's now an abominable tip. I write by hand, using a ballpoint pen on narrow lined A4 paper (with two holes, not four). I sit at a table covered with an old kilim rug, on a vastly expensive Danish orthopaedic chair, which has made a lot of difference to my back. The table is raised on wooden blocks so it's a bit higher than normal.
How long does it take to write a book?
Northern Lights took two years, and so did The Subtle Knife. The Amber Spyglass has taken three. But they were all long books. Short books take less time, not surprisingly.
How do you come up with the characters' names?
Some just appear. As soon as Lyra came to my mind, I knew what she was called. Others I have to make up. Lee Scoresby, for instance: the Lee part comes from the actor Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in the Dollar films with Clint Eastwood, because I thought my Lee would look like him, and the Scoresby comes from William Scoresby, who was a real Arctic explorer.
Are the characters based on people you know?
Not consciously. I just think of them.
Have you seen the northern lights?
No. They were one of the many things I had to read about and imagine.
Which children's writers do you admire?
Lots. Peter Dickinson, Jan Mark, Anne Fine, Jacqueline Wilson, Janni Howker, Michael Morpurgo, Allan Ahlberg - too many to name, really.
What was your favourite book as a child?
Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding.
Which books have made a difference to your life?
The books which have made the most difference to my life have been Grimm's Fairy Tales, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Superman and Batman comics which were published when I was young - i.e. before they became 'dark' and self-consciously post-modernist, The Picture History of Painting by H.W. and D.J. Janson which I bought with a book token when I was fifteen, and Bernard Shaw's Collected Letters.
Philip Pullman's excellent website is here.