Once upon a time, I became a published author.

– guest post by S P Moss

The year was 2012 and it was all courtesy of Kay Green and her brainchild, Earlyworks Press. Or, more correctly, twin brainchildren as my first novel was published by Circaidy Gregory.

[Earlyworks Press was for competition anthologies, club and local projects, Circaidy Gregory Press was (and is) an imprint for our (mostly) fiction and poetry books – KG].

The children’s retro-style adventure novel, The Bother in Burmeon, had a simple idea at its heart. What if a 21st century boy, born into the digital age, could meet a hero of the analogue era, and experience the adventurous world of those times? And where better to launch it than Brooklands Museum, the home of British motor sport and aviation?

Looking back today, 2012 seems almost quaint. Most 8 – 12-year-olds didn’t have a mobile, let alone a smart phone. On Facebook, we were playing FarmVille and poking each other in a friendly and non-#MeToo way. There weren’t any wars on the doorstep and a pandemic was something children read about in history books.

Yes, most children were still reading for pleasure in those days. Just as many as back in the last century:

These days, only around 2 in 5 children aged 8 – 18 read for pleasure. The National Literary Trust has been tracking this since 2005, and the 2023 figure is the lowest seen in the survey. The increases seen during the pandemic haven’t been sustained. All those breathless pieces on how BookTok is reviving children’s reading are based on little substance. This article is probably nearer the mark.

I could write an entire book (if anyone would read it) on the whys and wherefores. Technology and changing priorities are an important factor. Does it matter if children don’t read, but play interactive, world-building games instead? Up for discussion. But another factor that’s clear is one of accessibility. School and public libraries are closing, as well as high street bookshops. I expect that “reading for pleasure” levels would have been low for children a century ago, too. And that reading was an almost exclusively middle-class pastime. Today, with the growing gulf between the haves and have-nots, what’s been dubbed “book poverty” is also on the increase.

The Bother in Burmeon was followed by Trouble in Teutonia in 2014, and The Al-Eden Emergency in 2019. The series is still alive and kicking in 2024, thanks to Kay’s valiant efforts in keeping the books in print and in stock. And, being time-travel adventures, they haven’t dated as much as some contemporary children’s books.

But time has moved on. Retro is 2000s these days, not the 1960s. Rules, regulations and curriculum pressures make school visits a struggle to set up, particularly from afar (I live in Germany). So sometimes the books need a little push. Which leads me to a charity called the Children’s Book Project. This was set up on a local scale in North London a few years ago, by Liberty Venn. The idea is simply to help redistribution of used (and new) books to children who’ll benefit from them.

From their London roots, the Children’s Book Project has grown to a UK-wide organisation, with over 1.2 million books donated. Increased awareness of “reuse, repair, repurpose” (rather than chucking stuff away) has contributed to their rapid recent growth. The charity, their partners and clever tech make it easy-peasy to do just that. You can take the books to a drop-off point – a school or supermarket, or even get them collected from your doorstep by Anglo Doorstep Collections.

So, I packed up a box of “Bothers, Troubles and Emergencies”, bookmarks and badges, along with a few of my son’s old books. Off I set to Cordwalles Junior School in Camberley. I left feeling I’d done a good deed. My halo got another polishing a few days later when the Deputy Headteacher sent me a big thank you and this photo:

It occurred to me that none of those children was born when my first book was published. But I hope that the universal themes of thrills and spills,  goodies and baddies, and friendship across time and place will keep them hooked.

Sometimes, it’s better to give than to sell – you never know where it will lead. Instead of “selling stuff off” I like to think of it as “keeping the books in circulation.”

Re-open, re-read, re-treasure … re-print? Not that we’ve got anything against selling. If you’d like to buy – maybe to send someone you know on a new adventure – please use the Paypal buttons below if you’re in the UK or, if you’re elsewhere, please contact Kay to check delivery prices).