Australian author Ken Spillman led the children’s literary innovation workshop recently with illustrator Chris Nixon. The writer spoke to Divya Kaushik about diversification in children’s literature in India and the growing market of books for ‘young adults'
While one was a sketch of a stout boy giggling silly, the other was of a young lad with a huge head, unkempt hair and a mischievous smile. When Ken Spillman asked over hundred children gathered around him to draw the character from his famous Jake series, there were different versions presented to him. Those drawings were his major point of interaction with children who attended the workshop at Samarpan School for Underprivileged Child, Vasant Kunj. The ‘Children’s literary Innovation Workshop’ was led by the Australian author, Ken, and illustrator Chris Nixon. The workshop focussed on innovative ways to engage children by extending children’s book series into ‘trans-media worlds’ including animation and interactive motion e-books. Ken and Chris showed how they’ve taken their well-known Jake series of children’s books into the digital world by building interactive content online. “This allows children to explore the narrative world of Jake beyond the page and is fun too,” Ken, who is known for his children literature and book for young adults. Apart from the Jake series, his famous works are love is UFO, Blue and Advaita The Writer. The author has been coming to India frequently and describes “Indian literary fiction to be one of the best in the world.” He says that an important change he noticed is that now there are more books for ‘young adults’. “When I first came to India in 2006 there were not many publishers who, we can say, were publishing writings for young adults. There’s been an increase in literature that might not come with a moral lesson. Authors now understand that a story needs to be engaging. Books are also an important medium to educate children about difficult issues relating to parental pressure, stress and anxiety, but that needs to be done in a fun way. Writers understand that and I can see that there is tremendous diversification in children’s literature in India. There are books for kids — fantasy tales and those which come with a moral lesson. There are books for grown ups, with interesting content, too,” he said.
Ken started writing as a child and was active in amateur theatre during his teens. What inspired him to take up writing was “my love for stories. I was fascinated with how I was transported to a different world and could imagine so many characters just with the help of stories. I was interested in ideas more than people.” The best thing he still enjoys about writing is creating characters that are almost real to him and going on some journey through them.
The writer’s books have been a favourite with Indian kids and his characters make his books relatable. His famous book Advaita The Writer is an interesting story of a girl who leaves Delhi for boarding school in Dehradun. It is about the love of books, the power of imagination, literary heroes, and of the birth of dreams.