So Frank Lampard has been offered what
is in all likelihood a whacking great sum of money to write a series of
children’s books. Few commentators seem overwhelmed by the prospect of Lampard
as a children’s author. There are plenty of good reasons not to be. For one
thing, the characters in the book are apparently “loosely based” on Lampard’s
Chelsea teammates. From what we know of them, it doesn’t seem as though they
would be fit to grace the pages of a children’s novel.
The whole thing is also a classic case of
an already famous person garnering even more attention on the basis simply of
being famous in the first place. There is a lot not to like about that.
Likewise the fact that the phenomenon of the celebrity children’s author seems
to imply that writing for children is something just anyone can do with ease – you
wouldn’t hire Katie Price to do your dental work; why then hire her to write a
kids’ book? – and that children can be fobbed off with any old nonsense,
provided there is a famous name on the cover.
As a children’s author who has not yet
had his own book published I have an extra reason to feel frustrated with
Lampard’s book deal. It may well be that the handful of agents and publishers
I’ve approached turned me down on the basis that my output is not yet of
sufficient quality to merit publication in a full collection. That may be
entirely fair. But what I do know is that, especially in the world of
children’s poetry, quality is far from a guarantee of publication anyway.
Publishers want material they know will sell, and poetry doesn’t sell
especially well at the best of times. Given this, publishers tend to publish
authors who have already established themselves, thus fomenting a kind of self-perpetuating
hegemony into which it is extremely hard for new authors to break. So Lampard's
book deal is sure to jar with us plebs.
But what many commentators seem to have
missed is that Lampard may, for all we know, be a gifted writer. David
Walliams, not originally famous for children’s books, turned out by all
accounts to be excellent. The first of Lampard’s books is not due out until
June and may likewise turn out to be very good. We just don’t know yet. My
guess is that the book will turn out to be no better than the multitude that
did not make it beyond many a publisher’s slushpile, but we should surely wait
to read it before passing judgment.
A less obvious but perhaps more
important point, though, is this: even assuming that Frank Lampard’s book is no
better than countless other unpublished efforts, his being published on the
basis purely of who he is may turn out to be no bad thing. Boys are often not
as enthusiastic about literacy as girls, and teachers have on occasion sought
to address this by having me in their school. Such teachers do not invite me in
purely on the basis of my material (a lot of which, admittedly, is likely to
appeal to boys anyway); they invite me because I am a male writer, and as such
am a positive role-model.
The fact that teachers invite me in on
this basis, and the fact that they often comment afterwards about the positive
impact on their reluctant boys of having a young male writer in their school,
shows that, in the eyes of the audience, the person delivering the words can be
at least as important as the words themselves. The fact that Lampard, a world
famous footballer and a role model, has written a book is sure to make lots of
previously unenthusiastic male readers sit up and take notice. I hope that
Lampard’s books will be marketed at and read by girls no less than boys, but
what is true is that a lot of the male readers would probably not have felt
compelled to read a book otherwise. I’ve no doubt that many boys will find a
way into reading through Lampard’s books, in large part on the basis that it
was Lampard who wrote them. It may be that they turn out, from a strictly
literary point of view, to be not very good (as I have said, we just don’t know
yet), but if they can successfully target a difficult young male demographic
then I am willing to put my own cynicism and bitterness aside, and so should
everyone else.
And lastly, coming back to my earlier
point about the notion that anyone can be a writer: this is precisely what I
tell my pupils all the time. Writing is, after all, not like dentistry – it needn’t take arduous training and it
needn’t be difficult. And now I can say this to back me up: if the likes of
Frank Lampard and Katie Price can do it, then so, surely, can you!
