Telling tales

   

    "I remember that as a child I was so absorbed in my tellings to others that they could see what I saw. I could always get an audience. Not that I looked for one, the telling was all, or rather, the seeing. I don't think I write for children, any more than the great Miss Potter. For what? Whom? Well, myself, perhaps; I never think of an audience, that would kill everything. I think all children's books are grown-up books. When children's books are children's books they are not worth reading."

    P.L. Travers, quoted in Tellers of tales: children's books and their authors from 1800-1964 by Roger Lancelyn Green.

    You can hear Pamela Travers' Desert Island Discs here.

Comments

[Terra]

Brilliant quote, when children's books are children's books they are not worth reading. Roger Lancelyn Green is familiar to me for his connection to C.S. Lewis.

[Cornflower]

Yes, he writes beautifully about Lewis later in the chapter from which that passage comes.

[LizF]

That quote explains a huge amount about why some children's books have long lives and others disappear as though they had never existed.
I am sure I remember Roger Lancelyn Green from a book of Greek myths I was given when I was ten which so fascinated me that I re-read it so often it eventually fell apart despite my always being very careful with my books.

[Fran H-B]

Not come across this book about children's books before. I see it was printed in 1964; will be adding it to my collection started when I wrote a thesis on Children's Books many, many years ago!