Attack of the book-writing kids [IrishTimes]
- Published: 29 March 2011
Ninety books written, designed and illustrated by Dublin children are on display at Trinity College as part of a project that encourages them to create their own worlds
‘WE HAD A lot more zombies in the beginning,” says writer Emer Martin. She’s talking about the story ideas that the fifth-class boys of Our Lady of Good Counsel school, Drimnagh, initially came up with for Bookmarks, an outreach project run by the Trinity Access Programmes (Tap).
Perhaps it’s not a complete surprise, too, that toilets proved a popular portal to another world among these 10-year-old boys. (“We told them it couldn’t be via a dream,” says Martin.) Other portals include fridges, tunnels, being knocked unconscious or, as in Jamie McGratten’s opening sentences, a basket: “I was sitting in my house bored out of my head, so I just put a basket on my head for the craic. I took it off five minutes later and ended up in a strange world.”
Glenn Byrne’s arresting story is about a giant machine-gun-toting rabbit called Buster Bunny and a robot, which is used to cook sausages on. His page borders are all of blood-tipped bullets, and heads on stakes. “This place is an abomination,” he has written of his world. Where did he get that word from? “I just thought about this auld fella I know, who’s always saying everything is an abomination,” he says. “It means not nice.”
Adam Smith has illustrated his story, Up the Stairs of Horrorville , like a cartoon strip. His imagined world, full of description, is one where, he writes, “the sky was always purple, the seas were always wine, the land was jet black”.
“You need to make things more interesting, so you have to describe them more,” he says. “One of my hobbies is writing stories. I’m thinking of one right now. It’s about a gem that gets robbed from a museum at night.”
For the past five years Tap has been working with primary schools across Dublin that the programme deems to be in disadvantaged areas. For the Bookmarks scheme it has worked specifically on projects that guide each child in a class towards writing and illustrating his or her own book. The books produced then go on display to the public in the Long Room at Trinity College Dublin. This year the Bookmarks theme is Journey, and, since February, Martin and artist Hannah Maguire have been working weekly with children from three schools: Our Lady of Good Counsel Boys’ National School; Scoil Eoin, Kilbarrack; and St Brigid’s, Haddington Road.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
