This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Beth Moran's first novel, Making Marion, was published on July 3 by Lion Fiction. Here she tells Novelicious why the Shirley Hughes Collection of children's stories made her realise how much fiction mattered to her.
The book that changed my life is a children`s book. But not one I had read, or heard of as a child. And although it will forever have a place on my bookshelf, it doesn`t belong to me. Inside the front cover is the name of my two eldest children, written in the clumsy scrawl of a four year old copying the letters from another piece of paper. For some reason the names have since been scribbled over with a biro, but I suspect the reason for that lies in the category of childhood squabble best forgotten, like who stole the chocolate out of the advent calendar, or blocked the toilet with a Lego hippopotamus.
The whole book, entitled the Shirley Hughes Collection, is a treasure trove. It makes me look at my brilliant, independent, quick-witted teenagers and long for the days I cuddled up with them, still soft and sweet and smelling of warm milk, to read a bedtime story.
And apologies to Ms. Hughes, I love Alfie and Annie Rose, but she didn`t write my absolute favourite in the collection, the one that set me on a totally unexpected course. My Naughty Little Sister at the Party, by Dorothy Edwards, is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. But it needs to be read by a master. If you don`t capture it just right, it is a long story without enough pictures and not enough happening to hold a child`s attention until the good bit. But, tell it well, and you are rewarded with round eyes, gasps of horror and the grin that realises My Naughty Little Sister and her fabulous friend Bad Harry have done one of those things every child thinks about but most will never, never do.
And those few short moments, when a child sits, spellbound by your words, and more importantly your expressions, the thrill and the joy and the sheer delight of sharing the wonder of a story, those moments were the ones that made me think: this matters to me, more than to most people. I`m good at this, telling stories. And as I secretly concluded that there is little pleasure on this earth greater than connecting over the power of a great story, a tiny seed was sown inside me. I am a story-teller. An author. Maybe…I`m still taking the Shirley Hughes Collection back off my bookshelf, now reading it to my nieces and nephew. One day I hope to read it to my grandchildren. And when I do, in part because of that beautiful, hilarious, shocking story, I will tell them another one. Mine. The one that started with three small, wriggly children in pyjamas and a book.