John Burningham: “If You Tell A Child To Finish A Chapter Before Lunch, It Becomes A Chore”
John Burningham has been writing for children for over six decades – and it’s still as challenging as it is enjoyable
I must have learnt to read at some point, I suppose – but in all honesty it was such a long time ago now that I simply can’t recall ever not being able to do it.
Our house wasn’t an especially bookish one, but my mother was very good about reading to us, and I have fond memories of sitting with her as she turned the pages and told the story. It’s a wonderful thing, to be read to – but of course in this day and age, with television and computer screens everywhere, it can be a battle for families to find the time.
I’ve never been a particularly good reader, it must be said. As a child I was more likely to be climbing trees and getting muddy than sitting quietly with a book – and as an adult, well, reading is something that I’m always intending to get back to. It’s so easy to get out of the way of doing it, especially if, like me, you are very slow at it. My wife, on the other hand, reads constantly – as well as working – so I know it can be done.
It seems to me that schools have a part to play in encouraging a love of reading and again, I believe that ensuring there is the opportunity for children to be read to is important. If you tell a child, ‘you must finish this chapter before lunch,’ then it becomes a chore and something that he or she will be glad to get away from once school is over – but finding even just ten or fifteen minutes in the day when someone who can do it well is able to read aloud in the classroom can be very inspiring.
My own education was a little unusual, in that I went to a total of nine schools before ending up at Summerhill for the last five years, which is an independent boarding school with an ethos of democratic governance – decisions are made at school meetings, with all children and staff having a vote if they want to use it, and everyone is free to do as they please, as long as their actions don’t cause harm to others. This meant that I had the advantage of never being pressured into anything. There is so much testing of children these days, and they are expected to reach certain targets at particular ages – but of course, they all develop in their own way and time. A.S. Neill, Summerhill’s founder, understood that, and he also knew that if young people go to lessons when they want to go to lessons, they’ll learn.
Like many young people, I left school with no idea of what I wanted to do next. Two and a half years of alternative military service involved some extraordinary work and places, but it wasn’t until I bumped into another ex-Summerhillian on Waterloo Bridge one day and asked what he was doing now that I knew what my next step would be. He was studying art and graphic design at Central, and as soon as he said it, I thought, ‘what a good idea!’. Luckily for me, they let me in on the strength of my portfolio, without a prediploma course – and everything just sort of happened from there. My first children’s book, Borka, won the Kate Greenaway Medal… and I’ve been writing and illustrating ever since.
I’m often asked where the ideas for my books come from, and my answer is not unlike the one that Tom Stoppard apparently gave to the same question: if I knew, I’d go there. That said, my most recent book, Motor Miles, is most definitely based on our current dog. He absolutely loves cars, detests walking, and is generally appalling really.
I do think that I have the ability to be able to communicate with children – even though I don’t spend a lot of time with them, or go into schools or anything. Some people have the idea that writing for little ones is easy, but it’s not at all. I can spend weeks trying to construct a sentence that will describe something in a way that I’m sure they’ll accept.
The thing about children is they are totally tactless; if they don’t like something, they’ll just push it away and refuse to go near it again. So you have to get it right.
