How to bluff your way through... CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

If children’s books were just for children, Harry Potter would never have become so astoundingly successful, selling over 400 million copies worldwide and spawning the highest grossing film series of all time. Our parents are to blame for that. Adults read the books to their kids, got hooked themselves, told their friends, pushed up sales and created the greatest literary phenomenon of recent times. Love or hate the boy wizard, he shows that kid’s books aren’t just for kids. Here is your quick guide to some great literature that little’uns shouldn’t be allowed to keep to themselves.

For Bookworms

Eoin Colfer calls his Artemis Fowl series ‘Die Hard with fairies’ – there’s no better way to describe this wickedly funny collision of a teenage criminal genius and subterranean, supernatural soldiers. As much as I hate to call a book ‘laugh-out-loud funny’, Colfer is hugely entertaining, even for so-called grown-ups.

I’ll be honest – the head-spinning teenager-speak of The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson makes me feel dizzy. And that makes me feel old. But Louise Rennison creates adolescence’s answer to Bridget Jones, who remains as likable and as funny as ‘Dave the Laugh’.

For Budding Historians

Some of the most powerful literature about war is from the perspective of the youngest victims. Ian Serraillier’s The Silver Sword is the true account of a family escaping occupied Warsaw, but the most memorable story is that of the Balicki children, surviving in a bombed-out cellar and open woodlands with no parents to protect them from Nazi forces.

Deborah Ellis spent months interviewing women and girls in refugee camps in Pakistan for The Breadwinner, about an 11 year-old girl forced to dress as a boy to provide for her family in Taliban-era Afghanistan. A window into the real impact of the Gulf Wars.

For Everybody

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time isn’t a children’s book, but the autism of the 15 year-old protagonist makes it an essential read for all ages, showing that we all need to learn that the world is a difficult place for many, whether we’re supposedly grown-up or not.

This article was originally published in Epigram (2011).