My favourite living children’s books writer is Lauren Child. What a great name for a children’s writer.
When she was a little blond girl, Lauren’s ambition in life was to wear sunglasses on the back of her head. Now that she has been snowed under so many book prizes, and has earned so much money, the critics-acclaimed and best-selling author can chill out glamourously with sunglasses.
Her graphic style is a stunning patchwork of drawings and collages, somewhere between Quentin Blake and Gustav Klimt.
Her stories are touching and ironic at the same time. They are cute, cruel and filled with dry humour in the great Roald Dahl tradition. Again in the Dahl tradition they definitely take children as intelligent beings.
My favourite Lauren Child story is ‘That Pesky Rat’. It is a wonderful read. A funny touching tale of how a pesky street rat finds home sweet home and become an actual pet. At some point the pesky rat who wish he had a name and an owner, talks a pet shop owner into letting him try his chance. The pet shop owner then suggests he should write a notice to be put in the shop window to advertise himself. Then the rat does it in a very honest way:
Brown rat looking for kindly owner with an interest in cheese. Hobbies include nibbling and chewing. Would like a collar with my name on. Would like a name. Would prefer no baths. Would wear a jumper if pushed. Yours truly, brown rat PS: sorry for the bad paw writing.
Eventually, a nice old gentlemen with poor eyesight misread the ‘r’ for a ‘c’ in ‘rat’ and adopts our pesky rat.
I also love the Clarice Bean character and her family. Clarice, age seven, is the hero of a number of illustrated books with great titles such as ‘Clarice Bean that’s me’, ‘My uncle is a Hunkle’ or ‘I will never ever eat a tomato’. These are wonderful for kids between four and nine. You can read it to them, and then they can read it themselves. Lauren Child also wrote actual novels(with some drawings too) – a great one is ‘Utterly me, Clarice Bean’ for kids between 8 and twelve I would say. It is a child spy book about the love of books.
Lauren Child is a also the mother of Charlie and Lola, popular characters on books and TV; I am not familiar with them and I feel they are for smaller kids.
Anyway the official Lauren Child website is great fun.
