‘Children’s literature chose me & I’m an accidental illustrator’

‘Children’s literature chose me & I’m an accidental illustrator’

Irish poet & author John Dougherty opens up about his inspirations 

Mount Litera School International brought Bookaroo-Children’s Literature Festival to Mumbai, where writers and artists from across the world conducted several kind of sessions for the young participants. We chatted up with John Dougherty, a popular Irish poet, author and songwriter, who conducted sessions at the fest. Dougherty, a former teacher, apart from writing, enjoys visiting schools to conduct reading sessions and, reciting poetry and singing songs to the kids.

How did you come to write children’s books?

It’s a long story, but in brief: when I trained to be a teacher, the course included a focus on children’s literature and I fell in love with children’s books all over again. Eventually, I started writing stories for my class, and then sending stories to publishers.

Why do you find it easier to relate to children?

I have a clear memory of realising, when I was young, that some grown-ups had completely forgotten what it was like to be a child. I vowed to myself that I would always try to remember.
When you wrote the Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face series, were there any real life characters that you would refer to?

My children, Noah and Cara, very definitely provided the initial inspiration and I think a lot of the stories’ sense of playfulness is inspired by them. There are a few specific moments in the stories, too, that directly draw on them or on other children I know. And one or two lines which were born when one of them said something funny and added, “You should put that in a book,” and I thought, “Yes! I should!”

What is your earliest memory of illustrating comics from secondary school?

I’m really not an illustrator! Some friends and I used to spend lunchtime writing and drawing funny comics in which ridiculous things happened; a lot of them featured insects, because they’re easier to draw than people. My main character was The 6½p Bluebottle, inspired by the then very popular TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man. 

In today’s age of political correctness are there any taboos that affect your work?

To me, “political correctness” is just one category of “good manners”. It’s very poor manners to stereotype or disparage somebody else on race, gender, their sexuality, abilities or disabilities or differences from some arbitrary concept of normality. If you can’t write a good story without doing that, you’re probably not a very good writer. So, no, I don’t feel there are any taboos because of political correctness. 

Source | Daily News Analysis | 25^th February 2018

Regards

Prof. Pralhad Jadhav 

Master of Library & Information Science (NET Qualified) 

Senior Manager @ Knowledge Repository  

Khaitan & Co 

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/  

Website | https://sites.google.com/site/pralhadjadhavlib/home        

Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978